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Special Educational Needs (SEN)

The SEN Code of Practice (DfES, 2001b) provides advice to Local Education Authorities (LEAs), schools and others on carrying out their statutory duties to identify, assess and make provision for children and young people's special educational needs. A child or young person has SEN if he or she has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.

Learning difficulty is defined as when a child or young person has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children or young people of the same age; or has a disability, which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children or young people of the same age in schools maintained by the County Council.

Special educational provision means educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children or young people of their age in schools maintained by the County Council, other than special schools, in the area.

'Graduated' Approach

The Code sets out as what it describes as a ‘graduated’ approach featuring ‘School Action’ and ‘School Action Plus’. This approach recognises that there is a continuum of SEN and, where appropriate, brings increasing levels of expertise to support the child or young person's learning.

Action

Intervention at the level of School Action involves staff in the pupil's school, e.g. Teaching Assistants and/or the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO), providing additional support to help the pupil to progress. The Code recommends that strategies that are adopted to enable the pupil to progress should be recorded in the form of an Individual Education Plan (IEP), a working document which outlines support that is additional to, or different from the differentiated curriculum plan which is part of provision for all pupils.

Action Plus

At the level of School Action Plus, a request for support will usually have been made to external services following a review of the pupil's IEP. At this level external support services, whether provided by the County Council or other outside agencies, will provide more specialist input and may include regular visits by professionals from a specialist service (e.g. a qualified teacher of the visually impaired). A new IEP is then drawn up which sets out fresh strategies for supporting the pupil's progress.

Statemented

If a pupil's parent or school believes that his or her needs cannot be met by the resources available they can apply to the County Council to carry out a Statutory Assessment of SEN. The Statutory Assessment can lead to a Statement of SEN. This statement summarises the child needs; what learning objectives need to be focused on and what provision is necessary to achieve this. The County Council is responsible for the provision on the Statement and will provide funding and advice to the school to ensure this happens.

Lancashire-12 Analysis

The table below highlights the number and percentage of children and young people in the Lancashire-12 districts with SEN needs over the last few years:

Type of Need	2008	2009	2011	2012
No SEN	136,882	133,939	130,816	132,452
No SEN	82.1%	81.9%	82.0%	81.8%
School Action	15,612	15,292	14,195	14,749
School Action	9.4%	9.3%	8.9%	9.1%
School Action Plus	8,186	8,770	9,164	9,390
School Action Plus	4.9%	5.4%	5.8%	5.8%
Statemented	6,017	5,623	5,247	5,300
Statemented	3.6%	3.4%	3.3%	3.3%

Source: DfE School Census

While the percentage of children and young people requiring SEN assessment has dropped since 2008, the percentage of School Action Plus assessments have been increasing over the past few years.
The percentage of Statemented assessments have dropped since 2008. This is due to impact of Enhanced Early Years Action Plus (EEYAP) and Enhanced School Action Plus (ESAP) funding.This funding provides intervention so that children and young people can have their needs met at an earlier stage, without the need for the statutory assessment process. Children and young people whose needs cannot be met through ESAP funding can still request a statutory assessment, which may lead to the issuing of a statement.
The numbers of School Action assessments have dropped since 2008, but the 2012 figures have shown 0.2% increase compared to 2011.

Incidence of Need

The latest DfE schools census figures tell us the most prevalent category of need for pupils in Lancashire-12 districts is Moderate Learning Difficulties, the majority of these pupils are educated within mainstream schools. The second most prevalent need is Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties, again the majority of these pupils are educated in mainstream schools. The least prevalent is Multi-Sensory Impairment (MSI).

District	ASD	BESD	HI	MLD	MSI	OTH	PD	PMLD	SLCN	SLD	SPLD	VI
Burnley	82	348	26	299	2	54	71	14	212	46	129	28
Chorley	116	196	26	251	0	58	58	30	177	36	132	17
Fylde	64	115	14	84	1	37	44	10	99	36	52	3
Hyndburn	73	201	29	296	2	41	65	18	221	23	86	16
Lancaster	172	316	81	288	1	37	81	27	192	79	172	11
Pendle	78	220	34	354	4	63	55	23	231	41	177	26
Preston	138	319	66	365	0	127	63	31	231	64	148	34
Ribble Valley	49	74	14	78	1	22	17	6	56	11	54	8
Rossendale	84	114	22	171	0	36	33	12	145	26	95	16
South Ribble	140	228	27	218	3	57	52	25	146	38	128	8
West Lancashire	137	197	21	237	1	80	57	15	176	47	126	13
Wyre	91	156	12	183	0	44	60	12	133	63	90	8
Lancashire-12	1224	2484	372	2824	15	656	656	223	2019	510	1389	188

Key:
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulty (BESD)
Hearing Impairment (HI)
Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD)
Multi-Sensory Impairment (MSI)
Other (OTH)
Physical Disability (PD)
Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty (PMLD)
Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN)
Severe Learning Difficulty (SLD)
Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD)
Visual Impairment (VI)

Source: DfE School Census

A range of resources related to SEN is available in the Children and Young People Resources page.