Skip to main content
search
Category

special educational needs

Nov 08
Love0
SEN learning

What should you do if you think your child may have Special Educational Needs?

By Education, Mental health, numeracy skills, reading, Relationships, special educational needs

by Chloe Chapman
SEND Consultancy Services

The term ‘Special Educational Needs’ describes learning difficulties or disabilities that make it more difficult for children to learn than most other children of the same age.

What is the first step I should take if I think my child has Special Educational Needs?
It can be a worrying time if you are concerned that your child is not developing in the same way as other children or doing as well as they could be in nursery, school or college. Each educational setting will have a SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) responsible for providing additional support for children with additional needs. If you have concerns, you should arrange a meeting with the SENCO and other key staff who work with your child frequently (for example, the class teacher or form tutor), to discuss where you feel your child is struggling and what support is already in place to help your child.

The school (and you) may feel that your child needs more support, and this should be reflected within a SEN Support Plan.

The SEN Support Plan should include clear outcomes that it is expected your child will meet, and the support they will need for that to happen. For example, if your child is struggling with writing, support may include an intervention or support group that your child will attend, and during writing activities a staff member will support them. The SEN Support Plan should be reviewed regularly to ensure that your child is making good progress and the support is working well.

What is the next step if a SEN Support Plan is not working?
If your child has a SEN Support Plan, but they are still not making as much progress as would be expected, they may need an Educational, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. A parent/guardian, educational setting or a professional working with your child can apply for an EHC Plan, using the link available on the Local Offer for your Local Authority.

You do not have to use the forms provided by the Local Authority, but they will guide you as to what information to include. It is important to include as much evidence as possible – this can be information from the educational setting such as; a copy of the SEN Support Plan, results from standardised tests and examples of your child’s work. If your child has received additional care from Health Professionals such as your GP, a Paediatrician or Consultant, then include any corresponding paperwork. You can include reports from other professionals who may have worked with your child, such as: Educational Psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist, Behavioural Support Worker or a Physiotherapist. Where possible, evidence should be dated from the last two years so it is still relevant to your child. For your child to receive the help they need it is important for reports to reflect how they might be on their worst day; this can make for difficult and emotional reading. Please remember that this is a means to an end and with the correct support in place the good days should far outweigh the more challenging days.

Once this information has been submitted to the Local Authority, they will make a decision about whether your child will undertake an EHC Needs Assessment. This is a 20 week assessment process, where the Local Authority gathers further information on your child to make a decision about what level of support is required. At the end of this process your child may receive an EHC Plan, or they may remain on a SEN Support Plan.

How to find information about services available through my Local Authority?
Local Authorities have an obligation to publish information relating to services and support for children on the Local Offer. The Local Offer will include information about how to apply for an EHC Plan, who to contact for help and what the process will look like for your area. If you are thinking about applying for an EHC Plan it can be useful to discuss this first with your local SEN Team, a local support group or an independent SEN consultant.

Aside from an EHC Plan, what else should my Local Authority be offering? –
The Local Offer should explain what schools are expected to provide as part of a universal offer for every child. Teachers should be regularly assessing children to identify which children may need additional help. In any one class, the teaching staff (with guidance from the SENCO), could be running a number of catch up or intervention groups for children with skills or knowledge gaps. The expectation is that if a teacher identifies a gap or delay, that the school should look to their own existing groups and resources to support a child in the first instance. As a parent, regular communication with school staff is key to making sure that you are both on the same page and your child is getting access to the support they need.

If you would like more advice about your child and their individual circumstances, then please do get in touch. SEND Consultancy Services can talk through possible next steps, attend meetings, read over reports, SEN Support Plans or EHC Plans and be an advocate for you and your child.

www.sendconsultancyservices.co.uk – chloe@sendconsultancyservices.co.uk – www.surreylocaloffer.org.uk

Nov 02
Love0
children jumping in a forest

How can education prepare children to lead a good life?

By Education, Mental health, Relationships, special educational needs

by Dr Ian Cunningham
SML College

I would guess that no one ever said on their deathbed: “I wish I had got better grades at GCSE”. In fact, research on deathbed regrets suggests that people in different parts of the world show similar responses. A top regret, for instance, is around relationships – and people feeling that they may have neglected friends and loved ones or may have allowed work to dominate their lives. Others regret the kind of career they have had and feel that they have not fulfilled themselves through their work life.

There is a link here to Freud’s comment that “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Note that he didn’t say that these are the only things that matter. But if we put his saying alongside the evidence of people’s regrets, it’s quite clear that love and work are crucial to a good life.

If we take work first, then research shows that many people feel unsatisfied with the work that they do. The research shows that they needed better advice when they were younger to make career choices. In mentioning GCSEs at the start, one of the things that’s apparent is that people often choose GCSEs based on such factors as liking the teacher or the views of others.

What is necessary is for the child to be helped to explore what a good life would mean for them and what that would mean therefore in terms of things that they need to learn to help them to get there. At Self Managed Learning (SML) College we start our time with children who join us by asking them about their lives and about things they like and don’t like and about what a good life might mean for them – and therefore what they need to do to prepare themselves for that future. Now we recognise that, especially for younger children, they may not have very clear ideas. That doesn’t matter. It’s more about providing a space so that there is continual exploration of what an individual wants for themselves and for their life in the future. However, by the time students get to 13 or 14, clearly there are choices around what to do at GCSE. Those choices need to be made on the basis of how that helps the person to prepare for the future that they want.

The other side of Freud’s view is about importance of love. What he meant was not erotic love, but rather the ability to have loving relationships with those around us. It might be a more brotherly/sisterly kind of love or it might be a generalised love for humanity. Whatever focus we put on it, the link to deathbed regrets about relationships becomes relevant.

Schooling has become such an individualistic enterprise that, for instance, if you help a friend with a test, it’s called cheating and you get punished for it. In life, cheating is essential – that is, helping people. It is the cornerstone of good relationships. In our College we don’t have such testing. It’s quite common for young people to help and support each other in their learning and to take this beyond when they leave us at 16. For instance, research on former students has shown that one of the key things they comment on learning at the College is what they often call their social skills. They see themselves as being able to relate to others effectively and it actually goes beyond just skills. It’s clear that they value having been in a community that is caring and supportive and that they have learned to engage with others in a truly human way. We know that this is one of the major criticisms of employers about people coming out of the education system – that they’re not good at working in teams and relating effectively to others within the workplace.

When I say that it’s more than skill, it is because what young people learn in the community is about caring about others and demonstrating that care. By being in a small community that allows young people to really know those around them they can be highly supportive and caring to others.

In a court case about what constitutes suitable education, the judge defined it in the following terms: “To prepare children for life in a modern civilised society and to enable them to achieve their full potential”. I would go further than this. Although achieving full potential is clearly what we are aiming for, it has to be not just preparing people to fit in within society, but to be able to be themselves and to live a good life. One that is more than just fitting in. As each person is different, so they need to pursue the kind of learning that will give them a good life. This means not having a standardised curriculum and instead encouraging each young person to see who they can become and how they can achieve that.

Dr Ian Cunningham, Chair of Governors, Self Managed Learning College, Fishersgate, BN41 1QH. ian@smlcollege.org.uk

Close Menu