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Special Educational Needs
LEA’s must make special provision for children who have learning disabilities to ensure that they are provided with education which meets their needs. The general preference is that children with special educational needs (SEN) remain in mainstream schools.
Schools have an obligation to ensure that a child’s special educational needs are identified and known to those involved in teaching the child. This process is done by way of assessment and a child who has SEN is ‘statemented’ – a statement of the child’s needs and measures which are to be taken to deal with those needs is provided. If parents are not satisfied with the eventual provisions or the nominated school, they may appeal to a Special Educational Needs Tribunal provided that they require the assessment of the child themselves. The question of whether a child requires assessment and statementing can often be contentious in that parents may wish to have a child statemented but can encounter considerable difficulties in convincing a school to undertake this process.
Where the school refuses to statement a child the parents can appeal to the SEN tribunal. Each school is required to have a Special Education Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) who is responsible for overseeing the provision of SEN for a child within the school.
