What the Local Authority expects education settings to offer

Special Educational Needs and Disability

Once an early education setting or school has decided that your child has Special Educational Needs (SEND), step-by-step, specialist support can be brought in to help your child with their learning or a disability. The early education setting or school or college must tell you when they first start giving extra help for your child because your child has special educational needs and/or a disability.

The extra help could be a different way of teaching certain things, some help from an extra adult, perhaps in a small group, or use of particular equipment like a computer or a desk with a sloping top. In early education settings, schools and colleges this help is called the graduated approach.

If your child does not make enough progress, the teacher or the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) should then talk to you about asking for advice from other people outside the school. They might want to ask for help from, for example, a specialist teacher, an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist or other health professionals.

If your child still does not seem to be making enough progress or needs a lot more extra help, the Local Authority may decide to carry out a more detailed assessment of your child’s needs. Your child’s school or early education setting or college can ask the Local Authority to carry out an assessment. They should always talk to you before asking the Local Authority to do this.  If you feel that your child’s school, college or early education setting cannot provide all the extra help that your child needs, or your child is not making enough progress and is falling further behind other children of the same age, you can ask the Local Authority to carry out an assessment.