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Support at school for your child with SEND


Children and young people with special educational needs may get extra help if they find learning more challenging than their classmates.

The SEND code of practice states that schools, colleges and early education providers must do their very best to make sure that children and young people with SEND get their needs met through appropriate support.  

Ordinarily Available Provision guidance

Our Ordinarily Available Provision guidance for schools (pdf 846 kb) sets out the strategies, approaches to teaching, and adaptations that are part of everyday inclusive provision for all children and young people, including those with SEND. High quality inclusive teaching is the first step in helping children to overcome any barriers to learning. 

How to get support for your child

Speak to someone at your child’s school – this could be the:


The school might contact you to talk about the support they can give your child.  They will work with you to discuss and reflect on your child's strengths and needs and to jointly agree on the provision needed to support them. 

Before meeting the school you might want to...

...gather examples showing your child's challenges. That could include:

  • schoolwork and homework, school reports, test results
  • any professional reports
  • details of support they may have had at a previous school.

...write a list of your concerns. That might cover:

  • schoolwork and behaviour at school
  • concentration, physical skills, relationships
  • behaviour and mood at home.

...write down your child's strengths and interests

...write down any questions. For example:

  • What help does my child get?
  • How do you measure my child's progress? Is he/she making the progress you'd expect?
  • What assessments have the school done to find out about my child's needs?
  • What can I do at home to help my child?

Check the school's website - all schools must publish information about SEND, such as;

  • a SEN information report (which gives details about a school's provision and support for children and young people with SEND) and;
  • an accessibility plan (which shows how the school plans to make improvements to the physical environment to increase access to the curriculum and to make improvements in providing written information for disabled children and young people) 

SEN Support - Identifying your child's needs and monitoring progress 

Whilst high quality inclusive provision will meet the needs of most children and young people, some, including those with SEND, may need a more targeted approach. The school or education provider will assess your child's needs and work with you to plan the best support available.  This may include more of the strategies and approaches described in our  Ordinarily Available Provision guidance for schools (pdf 846 kb).

Creating a written plan

If your child needs additional help beyond the ordinarily available provision, the SENCo will work with you to identify your child's needs and create a plan. This includes what goals your child will work towards, and exactly how the school will provide extra support.

This additional help is called SEN Support. 

You should get a copy of the plan in writing.

If the school or education provider needs additional help to support your child, they can request advice from the Ask SALI team. 

School puts the plan into action

Your child’s teacher will put the plan into action. Everyone working with your child should be made aware of their needs, the support that will be provided and the outcomes you have agreed.

Review progress

You'll agree when to review your child's progress against the plan. You should meet at least 3 times a year (these meetings will be longer than most parent-teacher meetings).

The school or education provider should provide a progress report every year.

Next steps

If your child hasn't made reasonable progress, or you're unhappy with the support in place, it'll be important to agree what should happen next.

Sometimes it helps to involve other professionals in further assessment.

Your child’s needs might have changed or the support needs to change.

If your child's needs can't be met by SEN support, the next step might be to seek an education, health and care needs assessment. That will identify whether an education, health and care plan is required.

More about Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP)

Find out more about the 'ladder of support' available to children and young people in mainstream schools

Examples of ordinarily available provision

That support might include:

  • providing scaffolds such as sentence frames or word banks to support written tasks
  • chunking instructions or giving one at a time so they are more easily understood by your child
  • giving your child more time to process what they have heard, and think about their response before being asked to respond
  • using technology to help with accessing texts, writing and translation and developing independence
  • helping other children to work or play with your child
  • thinking how activities or trips are planned so that your child can take part and making reasonable adjustments when necessary
  • providing movement breaks and agreed calm and quiet spaces when appropriate
  • working with your child in a small group for a period of time
  • using personalised visual timetables to help with transitions and reduce any anxiety caused by busy or unpredictable environments


Extra help like this is sometimes called 'adaptive teaching' or 'reasonable adjustments'.  You'll find more examples of these in the Ordinarily Available Provision guidance (pdf 846kb) . 

For children with physical disabilities, reasonable adjustments could include things like:

  • providing wheelchair access
  • documents in Braille, or
  • assistive listening devices

Our expectations

We'd expect an education provider, school or college to create an inclusive school environment where understanding and acceptance of all children's individual needs is encouraged. Schools should listen to parents and carers about their child's strengths, needs and aspirations, and should involve them in planning support.  Our expectations for schools and educational providers are set out in full in the Ordinarily Available Provision guidance (pdf 846kb).

   

Page was last updated on: 14/01/2026 16:44:21