Special education provision we expect from places of learning

Our Provision Expected at SEN Support or PEaSS guidance sets out what special educational provision and training we expect mainstream schools, academies, free schools, early years, and post-16 providers to offer.

We want them to have a consistent and high-quality approach to supporting all children and young people who need extra help to learn and make progress alongside those of the same age.

Our aim is to work together to make sure we identify children's needs early. This is so they can get the right support, in their local area first, and achieve their potential.

Read about what SEN Support is.

Places of learning are required to meet the learning needs of every child in their school. This includes those learners identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Mainstream places of learning must:

• Use their best effort and do everything they can to make sure that a child with SEND gets the support they need
• Ensure that children and young people with SEND, engage in the activities of the school alongside pupils who do not have SEND
• Designate a teacher to be responsible for coordinating SEND provision (the SEN coordinator or SENDCo)
• Identify children and young people with emerging needs at an early stage
• Make accurate assessments of need and/or barriers to learning
• Engage other professionals, including speech and language specialists and educational psychologists, to support a child or young person as appropriate
• Enable access to low-cost resources for children and young people with SEND. For example, technology, writing slopes, pen grips.
• Provide appropriate SEND training for their staff
• Tell parent carers either verbally or in writing when they are making special educational provision for a child. Work with them and, where appropriate, children and young people themselves, to develop the right SEN Support. Regularly review this support to check it's working.
• Write an annual SEN information report, and publish it on their website to explain how they will provide support.

There is an expectation on schools and other settings to be able to:

• Identify children and young people with emerging SEND at an early stage
• Put appropriate provision in place to support them
• Make accurate assessments of need and/or barriers to learning
• Engage other professionals as appropriate

You can group levels of provision into: universal, targeted and specialist.

Universal provision is high-quality inclusive teaching. It includes reasonable adjustments and it's personalised for children who need some extra help. It considers the barriers to learning and how these can be overcome.

Targeted provision is for children and young people who need small groups and/or one-to-one focused support.

Specialist provision is for the smaller number of children and young people who need highly-personalised support.

SEN Support works by using the graduated approach.

First of all, high quality teaching must be in place. It will use reasonable adjustments, differentiated or adaptive teaching and personalised planning.

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 says additional intervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good quality teaching. This in itself is the first step to responding to the needs of many children who need extra help.

If a child or young person is not making the expected progress in their learning, teachers should review their provision. They should make the required adjustments for two cycles and review whether this has enabled the child to make progress.

If the child or young person is still not making progress the teacher should discuss this with the child and parents or carers before moving to the assess, plan, do, review cycle.

Step 1: Assess

The child's needs are identified so they get the right SEN Support. The assessment should include:

• Asking parents and the child or young person for their views
• Undertaking assessments and tracking progress
• Talking to professionals who work with the child

Step 2: Plan

• The child's place of learning and parents agree on the outcomes that the SEN Support should achieve
• Everyone involved in the process has a say in deciding what kind of SEN Support to provide. Together they decide a date to review.
• There is a written plan. This is so that everyone is clear what different, additional support is going to be in place.

Step 3: Do

• The place of learning will put the planned SEN Support into place
• The keyworker or teacher(s) remains responsible for working with the child daily
• Everyone involved working with the child or young person will work closely together

Step 4: Review

• A review of the SEN Support takes place by the time agreed in the plan
• Everyone involved in the process should decide together:
  • Whether the SEN Support is having a positive impact
  • Whether the outcomes have been, or are being, achieved
  • Whether they have to identify new outcomes
  • Whether the support needs to continue or they need to try different support

The assess, plan, do, review cycle starts again. It may take several cycles of intervention and different strategies before support needs are understood and met.

The PEaSS Guidance helps to identify a child's needs. It also helps to identify a menu of different approaches or provisions which you can use in the classroom to meet those needs. The whole school and SENDCo can also use approaches identified in the guidance.

There is no one-size fits all. Not all the suggestions may be appropriate for every child and every setting.

The guidance also makes it clear what the responsibilities are of governors, headteachers and principals, SENDCos, teachers and teaching assistants.

There are five categories of need. A child or young person may have needs in one or in several of these categories:

• Communication and interaction: speech, language and communication needs
• Communication and interaction: social communication and interaction
• Cognition and learning
• Social, emotional, mental health
• Physical and/or sensory needs

The full PEaSS guidance document provides full lists of indicators of need. It also offers suggested support approaches for each of the five categories.

You can access the PEaSS guidance document from the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) have difficulty in communicating with others. This may be because they:

• Have difficulty saying what they want to
• Have difficulty understanding what is being said to them
• Do not understand or use social rules of communication

The profile for every child with SLCN is different and their needs may change over time. They may have difficulty with one, some or all the different aspects of speech, language or social communication at different times of their lives.

Our full Provision Expected at SEN Support (PEaSS) guidance describes the difficulties and learning profiles a child might have with:

• Attention and listening
• Understanding
• Spoken language
• Speech sounds
• Social communication and interaction
• Learning and cognition

It describes what the whole school or setting can do to support children. It also describes the approaches a classroom teacher can use and the strategies a SENDCo can use. These can include:

• How to best give verbal instructions
• Actively teaching a child strategies for what to say and do if they don’t understand
• Using symbols to support spoken language and text
• Allowing extra time to complete tasks
• Identifying lead professionals within a setting and ensuring they have the right training
• How to access specialist professional support

Read the full PEaSS guidance document to find a full list of the different aspects of SLCN and the suggested approaches for support in the classroom, school, and for the SENDCo.

You can access the guidance document from the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Social communication and interaction difficulties, such as autism, have an impact on how children and young people communicate, relate to others and experience the world around them.

They may also experience difficulties with language, communication and imagination. This can impact on how they relate to others.

Our full Provision Expected at SEN Support (PEaSS) guidance describes the difficulties and learning profiles a child might have with:

• Cognition, learning and behaviours
• Social communication

It describes what the whole school or setting can do to support children. It also describes the approaches a classroom teacher can use and the strategies a SENDCo can use. These can include:

• Using consistent visuals around a setting to reinforce key routines and expectations
• Providing training for all staff on understanding autism and how to support autistic children
• Incorporating time for sensory circuits
• Allowing an autistic child to work alone rather than in a group if necessary
• Using technology to support engagement
• Supporting children to develop awareness of their feelings
• Supporting emotional regulation using various tools and strategies

The PEaSS guidance document provides a full list of the different aspects of social communication and interaction. It also gives the suggested approaches for support in the classroom, school, and for the SENDCo.

You can access the guidance document from the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Children and young people may need support for learning difficulties when they learn at a slower pace than their peers, even with appropriate differentiation.

Learning difficulties cover a wide range of needs, including moderate learning difficulties (MLD).

Specific learning difficulties (SpLD), affect one or more specific aspects of learning. This encompasses a range of conditions such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia.

Our full Provision Expected at SEN Support (PEaSS) guidance describes the difficulties and learning profiles a child might have. It describes what the whole school or setting can do to support children.

It also describes the approaches a classroom teacher can use and the strategies a SENDCo can use. These can include:

• Providing accessible resources and strategies to promote independent learning
• Allowing rest breaks. Concentration and motor effort are demanding and can cause fatigue.
• Checking understanding regularly and revisiting prior learning at the start of each session
• Teaching strategies to improve organisation
• Teaching a child or young person to talk themselves through visual and spatial tasks
• Promoting appropriate interpersonal skills with other children

Read the full PEaSS guidance document to find a full list of the different aspects of Learning and Cognition. It also contains suggested approaches for support in the classroom, school, and for the SENDCo.

You can access the guidance document on the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Children and young people may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties.

These can manifest themselves in many ways. They may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour.

These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as:

• Anxiety or depression
• Self-harming
• Substance misuse
• Eating disorders
• Physical symptoms that are medically unexplained

Other children and young people may have disorders such as:

• Attention deficit disorder
• Attention deficit hyperactive disorder
• Attachment disorder

Schools and colleges should have clear processes to support children and young people. This includes how they will manage the effect of any disruptive behaviour, so it does not adversely affect other pupils.

Our full Provision Expected at SEN Support (PEaSS) guidance describes the difficulties and learning profiles a child might have.

It describes what the whole school or setting can do to support children. It also describes the approaches a classroom teacher can use and the strategies a SENDCo can use. These can include:

• Providing appropriate training about SEMH and mental health to ensure staff confidence
• Having effective pastoral systems which support emerging difficulties at an early stage
• Displaying classroom rules and routines for pupils to refer to and use visual prompts as reminders
• Identifying a key person to talk about worries and support with problem solving
• Building self-confidence by finding out what children know about or are good at, and celebrating this
• Making tasks short, with frequent breaks and opportunities to move around

Read the full PEaSS guidance document to find a full list of the different aspects of SEMH. It also gives suggested approaches for support in the classroom, school, and for the SENDCo.

You can access the guidance document on the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Some children and young people need special educational provision because they have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally provided.

These difficulties can be age-related and may fluctuate over time. They include:

• Vision impairment (VI)
• Deafness
• Multi-sensory impairment (MSI)
• Physical needs including co-ordination difficulties

They will need specialist support and/or equipment to access their learning, or habilitation (such as mobility and independent living skills) support.

Our full Provision Expected at SEN Support (PEaSS) guidance describes the specific difficulties and learning profiles a child might have.

It describes what the whole school or setting can do to support children. It also describes the approaches a classroom teacher can use and the strategies a SENDCo can use. These can include:

• Checking whether children have equal access to curriculum, premises, information, and assessment
• Ensuring arrangements are in place for regular monitoring and checking of specialist equipment
• Allowing extra time to complete tasks and be aware of the fatigue children may experience due to the effort they have to put in
• Agreeing a private signal a child can use to show they have not understood
• Regular personalised/small group learning to target identified areas of need
• Monitoring social and emotional wellbeing and inclusion
• Identifying appropriate differentiation or modifications to:
  • The curriculum
  • The environment and assessment
  • Exam materials and recording of answers

Read the full PEaSS guidance document to find a full list of the different aspects of Social Communication and Interaction. It also contains the suggested approaches for support in the classroom, school, and for the SENDCo.

You can access the guidance document on the Schools and Learning Providers website.

Norfolk SEND Youth Forum are a group of children and young people from 11 to 25 years old with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Disabilities.

They have told us what support young people would like to have in their education.

• We are unique and we all need different things. We all need help sometimes, but we do not always feel able to ask for it
• You can help by asking us how we want to be supported and what we need to help us

These are our 'top tips' for adults who support us:

• Don't judge us before you get to know us. Talk to us and listen to what we have to say.
• Make sure that we understand what kind of help and support is available to us
• Understand that we might find it difficult to ask for help. Check in to make sure that we have understood and to help us focus.
• Make sure there is a named, trusted adult that we can talk to
• Give us extra time to think, to understand and to answer questions. It takes the pressure off!
• Use short clear instructions broken down into small steps
• Remind us about what we need to do if we forget
• Support us to use things that might help us, like a fidget toy or a laptop to help with writing
• Give us time and space to calm down if we are feeling annoyed or frustrated

The NHS core provision offer to schools outlines the commissioned services available to support the health needs of children in schools.

Access the NHS core provision offer to schools document on the Norfolk Schools and Learning providers website.