Special Educational Needs (SEN) support in schools

Education settings must:

• do everything they can to ensure that a child with SEN gets the support they need
• ensure that children with SEN can get join in school activities with children who don't have SEN
• name a teacher to be responsible for SEN provision. This is the SEN co-ordinator (SENCo)
• inform parents when they are making special educational provision for a child
• publish a SEN information report showing how they support children with special needs and disabilities.

Education settings have money in their budget to meet these duties. So parents can expect mainstream education settings to provide specialist support to their child. This is called "ordinarily available provision".

Ordinarily available provision might include for example:

• the teacher adapting the learning materials that some children use because they learn in a different way to others
• providing break-time clubs for children who find it difficult to socialise
• offering intervention programmes such as communication skills groups
• providing extra adult support in some classes or for parts of lessons.