All children and young people of statutory school age (5-16 years old) are entitled to access full time education. Reasonable adjustments and adaptations should be made to ensure all children and young people have full access to learning and make good progress. 

This support that should be available to all children is sometimes called ‘ordinarily available provision’ or the ‘universal offer’. Ordinarily available provision might include things like the use of a visual timetable, or structured lunchtime activities.

Reasonable adjustments

Schools and other education providers have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to their policies and their premises and to provide auxiliary aids. It is unlawful to treat a person less favourably because of a reason connected to their disability. This applies to all aspects of school, nursery or college life, including extra-curricular activities and trips.

This is to make sure that children and young people with a disability can access the same opportunities as other children and young people their age as far as possible. A failure to make a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act amounts to unlawful discrimination and can be challenged in a court or tribunal.

Schools and settings are also required to anticipate the likely needs of future disabled learners and take steps that are reasonable to meet those needs.

The adjustments that are ‘reasonable’ will vary depending on the situation, the impact of the adjustments and the cost. 

Reasonable adjustments might include things like – 

• Auxiliary aids such as coloured overlays, enlarged print, reader pens, adaptive keyboards or specialist computer software
• scheduled rest breaks
• letting a young person leave and enter lessons first to avoid busy corridors
• positioning a child at the front of the class facing the teacher if they rely on lip reading. 
• alternative lunch space 
• alternative arrangements for start or end of day
• Specialist equipment or furniture
• Visual timetables and/or use of symbols

If you think that your child is experiencing discrimination due to their disability, then you should raise this directly with the school SENCo or Headteacher.

Adaptive teaching

All teachers should use ‘adaptive teaching’. This means that their approach to teaching and learning should aim to meet the individual needs and experiences of all children. Adaptive teaching includes adapting the approach to lesson delivery, balancing the level of new and familiar learning that is being introduced, and the effective use of teaching assistants to support learning. This is expected for all children and young people, regardless of special educational needs.

Equality Act 2010: guidance Information and guidance on the Equality Act 2010, including age discrimination and public sector Equality Duty.

Children and young people with special educational needs are entitled to support that is ‘additional to and different from’ the support that other children of their age would usually get, this is sometime called Special Educational Provision. This will need to look different for all children and young people depending on their special educational needs.

Targeted support or special educational provision might include things like the use of:

• social stories for children with social and communication needs
  • This is a book with pictures and words that show what you can do in a situation to feel better or solve a problem. It's like having a friendly guide that helps you understand and handle different things that come up in life.
     
• the use of Precision Teaching for children with literacy difficulties
  • Precision teaching is a special way of helping children who have trouble with reading and writing. It's like a fun game where you practice specific skills, such as reading words or writing letters, for a short time every day.
     
• a Nurture Group for children with social, emotional, mental health difficulties 
  • Nurture groups are special, small classes in schools designed to help children who have difficulties with their feelings, behaviour, or making friends.
     
• or Cool Kids/Cool Characters for children with fine or gross motor difficulties.
  • The "Cool Kids" program is like a special gym class that helps children get better at using their hands and bodies, so they can do things more easily and feel good about their abilities.
  • The Cool Character Programme is like a fun adventure with friendly characters that helps children improve their motor skills through playful and engaging activities. It makes learning these important skills enjoyable and rewarding.
     
• Reward systems 
   
• Time given for processing 
   
• Consistent use of terms 
   
• Home/school communication book

Wolverhampton has developed a guidance document for schools. The recommendations for targeted support are provided in the downloadable documents under each area of SEND need.

This provides detailed advice, guidance and suggestions for the type of targeted support and interventions that can be put in place for children and young people with different needs. If you would like to find out more about this, please speak to the SENCo at your child’s school. 

You and your child should be involved in planning the support they receive and reviewing whether it has made a difference. Your views should always be taken into account.

If your child is on roll at a school or other educational setting and they think your child might have special educational needs, the following steps should be followed. This is referred to as an Assess-Plan-Do-Review (APDR) cycle or the Graduated Approach:

Deciding whether a child has SEND:

1. The school/setting will have a discussion with the child and their parents/carers about their learning and share their concerns.
    
2. The school/setting will check that the child is receiving high quality teaching, including reasonable adjustments and adaptive teaching if needed.
    
3. The school/setting will carry out some assessments, which might include talking to the child and their parents, observations, talking to teachers, and doing some specific activities or tests such as curriculum-based assessments to check levels in reading, writing or maths, or screening tools designed to identify gaps or differences in other areas of development such as communication skills, social skills or physical development.
    
4. If the assessments suggest that the child does have SEND, then the school/setting should talk to the child and their parents/carers about putting them on the SEND register.
    
5. The school/setting should signpost parents/carers to Wolverhampton Information, Advice and Support Service (WIASS).

Starting the Graduated Approach:

1. The school/setting should start the ‘graduated approach’. This means working with the child and their parents/carers on a cycle of assess-plan-do-review (ADPR). 
    
2. Assess - The school should carry out any additional assessments that are needed to help them understand the child’s needs
    
3. Plan - The school/setting should agree individual targets with the child and their parents/carers. The school/setting should also agree what additional support will be provided to help the child achieve their targets (this should be different to what the majority of other children their age receive). This should be written down on a plan (sometimes referred to as a send support plan, or individual education plan) and the parents/carers should get a copy. Schools have an amount of money in their overall budget called a notional SEND budget. This means they are expected to cover the cost of additional support for children with SEND up to a national threshold of £6,000 per child per year. Not all children will need that level of support, but it means that all children with SEND can be provided with quite a lot of additional support by the school before any additional funding needs to be provided by the Local Authority. For information on the 3 elements of SEN funding for LA maintained/ Academy schools please visit How is SEN funded in schools?
    
4. Do – The schools should put the support in place for the child for an agreed amount of time. The support should be enough to help a child make progress whilst also supporting them to develop as an independent learner and be included with their peers.
    
5. Review - The school/setting should review the child’s progress against their individual targets at least once a term (3 times a year). The child (depending on their age and needs) and their parents/carers should be involved in the review. Sometimes the review will happen as part of a parents evening session, sometimes it will be a separate meeting. Schools will use different names for this but often it is called a TAC (Team Around the Child) review, an IEP (Individual Education Plan) review, or a SEN Support review. New targets should be agreed and there should be a discussion about whether the special educational provision the child is getting needs to change.
    
6. The cycles of Assess-Plan-Do-Review should continue for as long as a child needs extra support.  If a child is not making expected progress with the special educational provision that is in place, then the school should consider involving specialist services, such as a Speech and Language Therapist or Educational Psychologist. Referrals to specialist services will only be made with parent/carer consent.
    
7. If a child is still not making progress and everyone involved (including parents, school staff and any specialist services) agree it is appropriate then an Education Health and Care Needs Assessment (ECHNA) should be considered for an Education, Health and Care Plan. Parents have the right to request an EHCNA at any stage but are encouraged to work in partnership with the school and any specialist services that are involved.

For further helpful information about SEN Support visit WIASS SEN support

What should I do if I think my child is not getting the support they need? 

If you are concerned about the support that has been put in place for your child then you should first raise your concerns with the school, usually by asking to meet with your child’s class/form teacher or the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo).

For further advice and support contact Wolverhampton Information, Advice and Support Service.

Some children may not be attending a setting for example children in Early Years settings or young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), but if they have had special educational needs identified it is likely that some support services will be involved and will co-ordinate the Assess-Plan-Do-Review (APDR) process (for example, the Special Needs Early Year’s service might co-ordinate the APDR cycle for pre-school children who do not attend an education setting).