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Home > What is SEN Support?

What is SEN Support?

What support looks like

Where a child or young person is identified as having Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), schools and colleges should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place. This is called SEN Support. A child does not need to have an Education Health and Care Plan to have support from their school or setting.

Schools in North East Lincolnshire

In North East Lincolnshire we have a range of special educational provisions as part of our local offer. Find out about our Pupil Referral Units and other alternative provisions on our Pupil referral units and alternative education page.

On this page you can also find out about our Behaviour Service who support schools, academies and other settings to meet the needs of children and young people.

For general details of all schools in North East Lincolnshire go to the Find schools in my area page.

SEN support process

This SEN support replaces the old categories of School Action, School Action Plus, Early Years Action or Early Years Action Plus. It can be accessed for children and young people with varying levels of need, not just those who are undergoing an Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessment or have an EHC plan.

SEN support should happen in a four-part cycle:

  • Assess
  • Plan
  • Do
  • Review

This should give you, your child and everyone involved in supporting them a good understanding of the child or young person’s needs and of what supports is best for your child to make good progress achieve their outcomes.

If your child is identified as having a Special Educational Need and/or Disability (SEND), their education setting should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place.

This is called SEN Support. It can be accessed for children and young people with any level of need, not just those who need or have an Education Health & Care Plan (EHCP).

In North East Lincolnshire different settings have had their own way of recording the way they deliver SEN Support – you may have heard them called ‘Individual Education Plans’, ‘Personal Learning Plans’, ‘Pupil Passports’ etc.

  • My Plan is a new universal way for all settings to record this information in a format that is jargon free and dovetails in with the Single Assessment used in North East Lincolnshire.
  • My Plan puts your child at the centre of SEN decision making. It records how the pupil themselves would like to be supported and what goals or outcomes they are working towards.
  • My Plan also records what the family, setting or other adults supporting your child may be worried about, what is working well, and what needs to happen next.
  • My Plan makes it easier if pupils move schools and help parents to be familiar with just one style of recording and reporting for their children.

My Plan presentation

Have a look at our My Plan Presentation (PowerPoint) , which explains what My Plan is in more detail.

My Plan parent feedback

Your feedback is very important to us and it helps us improve the services we offer. To let us know your thoughts use the My Plan parent feedback form (PDF) .

How much support your child will get will depend on his or her individual needs. The nursery, school or setting will use a step-by-step approach to support.

If your child does not make progress then the support plan will be changed and the school will gradually increase support. Mainstream schools get around £10,000 per child per year in their budgets to support children with SEN and disabilities.

At least once a year school staff will meet you to talk about your child’s progress and support plan. This meeting is called a review. At the review, you will:

  • Look at your child’s progress
  • Set targets for the coming year
  • Check to see if he or she still needs the same plan or whether changes are needed.

Your child’s school or college will arrange the meeting.

Your child’s headteacher will invite:

  • You (you can also bring along a friend or relative)
  • Your child
  • A teacher who knows your child well
  • Any other professional who is involved with your child, for example a health professional or educational psychologist.

The headteacher will ask everyone, including you, to prepare a short statement. When you write or tell your statement, you might like to include:

  • What progress you think your child has made in the past year or term
  • Whether there are any major changes that may or have affected your child’s progress
  • What you hope your child will achieve in the coming year or term.

You can include photos, videos and anything else that helps tells your child’s story.

The school writes a report and will send you a copy with enough time for you to comment on it. The report will set out:

  • Any targets for the next year
  • Any changes to the support plan
  • Whether any support plan should continue.

When your child is in Nursery, Year 5 and Year 9, there will be a review to manage his or her change of school. The special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCos) from your child’s current and new schools will meet to plan for the change.

If your child changes school mid-term things are slightly different. If the move is planned, we suggest the schools have a meeting to talk about your child’s support. If the move is not planned then your child’s school will need to send the new school all the information about your child, which the new school will talk about at an admissions meeting.

When your child is in Nursery, Year 5 and Year 9, there will be a review to manage his or her change of school. The special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCos) from your child’s current and new schools will meet to plan for the change.

If your child changes school mid-term things are slightly different. If the move is planned, we suggest the schools have a meeting to talk about your child’s support. If the move is not planned then your child’s school will need to send the new school all the information about your child, which the new school will talk about at an admissions meeting.

The Peer Challenge process has been developed for Children’s Services across Yorkshire and the Humber and builds on the peer review model that was developed by the Local Government Association (LGA). A regional SEND peer review was completed in February 2018.

For details of this review read the SEN Peer Review Letter (PDF)