Directory of Services
- Adoption Support Team
- Area SENCOs
- Children with Disabilities
- County Psychologist Service
- Education Welfare Service
- Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Support Team
- Pupil Referral Unit
- Hospital and Home Tuition Service
- Looked After Children Education Services
- Parent Support Advisors
- Social Care
- Special Educational Needs
- Specialist Advisory Teaching Service
Introduction to Service/Eligibility Criteria
Meeting The Needs of the Individual Pupil: The Special Educational Needs Service
Sometimes some extra help is needed to make sure that a child reaches their full potential. Schools/settings and parents can access the special educational needs service. Many children have special educational needs of some kind during their education. In almost all cases, schools/settings and other organisations can help children overcome the barriers their individual difficulties present quickly and easily.
Children may need extra help because of a range of needs such as:
- Thinking and understanding;
- Difficulties with reading, writing or speaking;
- A problem with sight or hearing;
- A physical disability;
- Emotional and behavioural difficulties.
The majority of children with special educational needs are provided for within their local school/setting without the need for any involvement from Children's Services. The
National Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2001)
gives guidance on how children with special educational needs can be helped. This involves a graduated approach, referred to as 'school action' or 'school action plus'. On identifying a concern, the school/setting would discuss this with parents, making additional and different individual plans to help a child overcome their difficulty. Schools/settings have additional money in their budget to enable them to provide this.
If you think a child may have special educational needs, you should contact the child's school/setting. Talk to the child's teacher, Head teacher, or the teacher in the school/setting identified as the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator who will be able to discuss any concerns and explain what can be/is being done to assist a child.
A small minority of children have special educational needs that are so severe and complex that their school/setting cannot provide all that is necessary from within their own resources and expertise. In these cases, Children' Services can be asked by the school/setting to undertake a formal assessment of the child's special educational needs. Parents can ask Children's Services to carry out an assessment by contacting the Senior Education Officer for the Special Educational Needs Service in their area, who will always respond by consulting with the child's school/setting to consider whether such an assessment is necessary. If a child's special educational needs are formally assessed, parents would play a full part in the process and would be asked to provide information about their child's needs. The assessment would also involve an Educational Psychologist, the School Doctor, the child's teacher and head teacher and any other specialist professional who has been working with the child or may contribute to an understanding of the barriers to accessing the learning environment.
Following assessment, Children's Services would decide whether a child's difficulties are such that their school/setting needs additional resources to contribute to what is provided for them. If this is the case, then, sometimes these additional resources may be provided by an annual allowance to the school/setting, in other cases where needs were more complex, a statement of special educational needs would be issued describing your child's identified educational needs and what is needed to respond to them.
In most cases, even where a child has severe and complex needs, they can continue their education with extra support in their current school/setting. If your child's difficulties are severe and profound, the statement may propose a move to a more specialist school/setting. However, this is only in the most severe cases.
The Special Educational Needs Service is area based and works to provide an equitable and effective system for identifying, assessing and supporting children and young people with special educational needs. This is done in partnership with others within children's services, schools/settings, parents and other agencies, and within the resources and policies of Cumbria County Council.
Key Tasks:
- Raising the achievements of all young people with special educational needs
- Promoting inclusion through access to mainstream education
- Statutory assessments of special educational needs
- Allocation and monitoring of statutory and non-statutory resources
- Ensuring the LA has sufficient specialist school places to meet Cumbria children's needs.
Supporting Information Required
What supporting information is required beyond the CAF Pre-assessment Checklist and the standard Children's Services Single Referral Form?
Evidence for deciding whether to make a statutory assessment:
SEN Code of Practice 7:35 states
In considering whether a statutory assessment is necessary, LEAs should pay particular attention to:
- Evidence that the school/setting has responded appropriately to the requirements of the National Curriculum, especially the section entitled 'Inclusion: Providing effective learning opportunities for all children'
- Evidence provided by the child's school/setting, parents and other professionals where they have been involved with the child, as to the nature, extent and cause of the child's learning difficulties
- Evidence of action already taken by the child's school/setting to meet and overcome those difficulties
- Evidence of the rate and style of the child's progress
- Evidence that where some progress has been made, it has only been as the result of much additional effort and instruction at a sustained level not usually commensurate with provision through Action Plus.
In particular, Cumbria LA will require the following information from schools at this stage, which is specified in the SEN Hand Book-Aug 2006 Evidence of Academic Attainment:
a) National Curriculum, Foundation Stage or P Scale Assessment, whichever is appropriate, for the individual child, including;
- Results of assessment and tests in the core subjects of the national curriculum at the end of the key stages
- Evidence of significant discrepancies between:
- A child's attainments in assessments and tests in core subjects of the National Curriculum and the attainment of the majority of children of their age.
- A child's attainments in assessments and tests in core subjects of the National Curriculum and the performance expected of the child, as indicated by a consensus among those who have taught and observed the child, including their parents, and supported by such standardised tests as can reliably be administered.
- A child's attainment within one of the core subjects of the National Curriculum or between one core subject and another.
- A child's attainments in the foundation stage profile in comparison with the attainments of the majority of their peers.
- Evidence of whether:
- The child is not benefiting from working on differentiated programmes of study relevant to the key stage appropriate to their age or from earlier key stages, or is the subject of any temporary exception from the National Curriculum under section 364 of the Education Act (1996).
- The child is working at a level significantly below that of their contemporaries in any of the core subjects of the National Curriculum or the foundation stage curriculum.
- There is evidence that the child is falling progressively behind the majority of children of their age in academic attainment in any of the National Curriculum core subjects, as measured by standardised tests and the teachers' own recorded assessments of a child's classroom work, including any portfolio of the child's work.
b) Rate of progress over time: longitudinal evidence.
c) Attainments on standardised tests if available.
d) Teacher's own recorded assessment of child's classroom work.
e) Portfolio of the child's work to illustrate their progress.
f) Evidence that:
- Two appropriate targeted, focused and resourced provision maps/IEPs were carried out for a period of at least a term each at 'School Action'.
- Two appropriate targeted, focused, resourced and specialist informed IEPs were carried out for a period of at least a term each at 'School Action Plus'.
- Evidence of review and evaluation leading to subsequent planning of the above intervention.
g) Evidence of appropriate involvement of parents (notification of concern, involvement in IEP reviews, discussion with specialist staff, participation in home learning support work).
h) Evidence of appropriate involvement of the child, that his/her views have been sought and considered in making plans for him/her. Evidence that appropriate feedback has been given.
i) Evidence from the school's SEN Funding Summary Sheet and Provision Mapping to indicate how resources have been deployed to meet the special needs of the pupil in school/setting.
j) Evidence of the involvement and views of professionals with relevant specialist knowledge and the extent to which the school/setting has followed that advice, and evaluated progress, as a result of the advised strategies via the child's IEPs over time.
k) Child's attendance record over the past two terms.
l) Information about the child's home or family circumstances including any significant difficulties.
m) Evidence of contributory medical problems or sensory impairment.
n) Evidence that the child's performance is different in different environments.
o) Where appropriate, evidence that school/setting have used a common assessment framework approach with other agencies to overcome the child's barriers to learning.
Other Factors (as appropriate)
- Clear, recorded evidence of motor coordination difficulties; significant difficulties of sequencing or visual perception; deficiencies in working memory; or significant delays in language functioning.
- Any evidence of impaired social interaction or communication or a significantly restricted repertoire of activities, interests and imaginative development.
- Evidence of significant emotional or behavioural difficulties, as indicated by clear recorded examples of withdrawn or disruptive behaviour; a marked and persistent inability to concentrate; signs that the child experiences considerable frustration or distress in relation to their learning difficulties; difficulties in establishing and maintaining balanced relationships with their fellow pupils or with adults; and any other evidence of a significant delay in the development of life and social skills.
- For some children with severe, profound and complex needs (almost always identified pre school), it is clear that their needs are so great as to require significant intervention prior to evidence of a school’s response at school action and school action plus. In such cases, the early years specialist advisory teacher may refer for statutory assessment.
Further guidance on the type of evidence required to enable the Local Authority to make a decision relating to specific areas of special educational need are outlined in the National SEN Code of Practice 2001, Chapter 7 and in the criteria relating to the specific areas of need contained in this policy.
Contact Details
Allerdale & Copeland districts
Whitehaven Area Office
Senior Education Officer - SEN
Union Hall
Scotch Street
Whitehaven
Cumbria
CA28 7BG
Tel: 01946 852700
Barrow & South Lakes districts
Barrow Area Office
Senior Education Officer - SEN
The Nan Tait Centre
Abbey Road
Barrow in Furness
Cumbria
LA14 1LG
Tel: 01229 894400
Carlisle & Eden districts
Carlisle Area Office
Senior Education Officer - SEN
The Newbeck Centre
Morton School
Wigton Road
Carlisle
Cumbria
CA2 6LB
Tel: 01228 606843