What help is there for children without statements?

Most of the help available for children with learning difficulties is provided by schools. Children who are not making adequate progress compared to their peers may receive help at different levels. The SEN Code of Practice (PDF 500KB) sets out the way schools should give extra help as follows:

School Action

School Action is support provided in addition to the help schools routinely give to children who need may need different teaching methods or extra time to learn.

If routine help is not making a difference for your child, then you should ask to speak to your child’s teacher, head teacher or special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO). If the school agrees that your child needs more support, they should collect information about your child from you, their teacher(s) and anyone else who knows about your child’s problems. They will decide what help your child needs and prepare an individual education plan (IEP). This should include:

• details of your child’s difficulties
• three or four short-term targets for your child’s learning
• the help the school will provide to help your child reach the targets
• when and how they will check whether your child has met the targets and whether he or she needs any further help.

The help your child will receive might include:

• different learning materials
• special equipment
• extra adult help in a group or one-to-one
• special programmes such as an individual behaviour management plan
• more staff time for planning your child’s help and checking progress
• and additional training for staff to improve how they can help your child.

School Action Plus

Some children may go straight to School Action Plus, which is a higher level of support. Other children may get this help because they are not making enough progress after two terms or more of School Action help. At this level, the school calls in outside experts.

The experts will probably check your child’s progress, suggest new ways of helping them and set new targets for their IEP. The SEN Code gives the following examples of help that may be provided at School Action Plus level:

• different teaching methods
• equipment and materials
• advice for teachers
• specialist teaching for the child
• changes to the way the school is organised or managed.

State funded early years providers, including nurseries, can offer help for children with special needs on a similar basis. The equivalent schemes are Early Years Action and Early Years Action Plus.

Individual education plans should generally be reviewed two or three times a year. The review will check on your child’s progress, and whether the help needs to continue, be changed or stop. The SENCO should invite you to attend IEP review meetings.

Unfortunately having an IEP and review meetings are not legal requirements, so some schools don’t bother with them. However they are strongly recommended in the SEN Code. So if your school doesn’t involve you in planning and checking your child’s progress you should ask what it does instead and how you can have a say.