What is SEND support?
Special educational support is educational or training provision that is additional to or different from that made generally for others of the same age, ie provision that goes beyond the differentiated approaches and learning arrangements normally provided as part of high-quality, personalised teaching. This is called Ordinarily Available Provision.
Four broad areas of need give an overview of the range of needs that should be planned for, not to fit a pupil into a category.
The broad areas of need are:
- Communication and interaction
- Cognition and learning
- Social, emotional and mental health
- Sensory and/or physical needs.
Children who receive SEN Support usually have a written plan or a provision map prepared for them that describes what additional or different support the school will offer, and how together parents/carers and school will help the child make progress. Our schools will work together with parents/carers to plan and monitor the impact of the SEN Support.
SEN Support might include extra help with reading, writing and maths but might also focus on other things such as speaking and listening, visual enhancement, motor/movement or mobility skills, or social and emotional development. SEN Support can be delivered by staff from the school or from outside professionals such as specialist teachers. Even when support is delivered by these external professionals, it is the responsibility of the child’s class teacher to monitor the progress the child is making as a result of that and any other support as part of the assess, plan, do review cycle.