The SEN Code of Practice provides practical advice to LEAs, maintained schools, early education settings (nurseries) and others on carrying out their statutory duties to identify, assess and make provision for children's special educational needs.

SEN Code of Practise 2001 Statements

In order to get a statement for your child, you first need to get an Assessment of Special Educational Needs from the LEA, if you have not done so please refer to the fact sheet called Requesting an Assessment of Special Educational Needs.

The criteria for deciding to draw up a statement:

The LEA should consider all the information gathered during the statutory assessment process and relate it to that presented by the school. They may wish to consider the following:

The Child's Learning Difficulties.

• Does the information on the child's learning difficulties provided in the advice for the assessment broadly consist with the evidence presented by the school?
• If not, are there aspects of the child's learning difficulties which the school may have overlooked and with advice, equipment or other provision, the school could effectively address through School Action or School Action Plus?

The Child's Special Educational Provision:

• Do the proposals for the child's special educational provision, arising from any of the assessment advice, indicate that the provision being made by the school, including teaching strategies or other approaches, appropriate to the child's learning difficulties?
• If not, are there approaches which, with the benefit of advice, equipment or other provision, the school could effectively adopt within its own resources through School Action or School Action Plus?

Consideration of provision's that may need to be made:

If the assessment confirms that the schools assessment and provision is appropriate but the child is still not progressing, or not progressing sufficiently well, the LEA should consider what further provisions may be needed and whether those provisions can be made within the schools resources or, whether a statement is needed.

The Following are examples of possible approaches:

If the LEA concludes that the child's learning difficulties call for:

• Occasional or irregular advice to the school from an external specialist
• Occasional or irregular support with personal care
• Access to a particular piece of equipment such as a portable word processor, an electric keyboard or tape recorder

The LEA may feel that the school could reasonably be expected to make such provision from its own resources through School Action Plus.

If the LEA concluded that the child's learning difficulties called for:

• Regular and frequent direct teaching by a specialised teacher
• Daily individual support form a learning support assistant
• A significant piece of equipment such as a closed circuit TV, a computer or CD Rom device with appropriate software
• The regular involvement of non-educational agencies

The LEA may conclude that the school could not make such a provision and therefore they should formally identify in a statement the child's needs, the full range of provision to be made and review arrangements. The LEA's conclusions will depend on the precise circumstances of each case and take into account funding arrangements for schools in their area. Where they conclude that a day or residential special school placement might be necessary, they should draw up a statement.

Writing up a statement:

Where an LEA , having made the decision to make a statement, they shall serve a copy of a proposed statement and a written notice on the child's parents within 2 weeks of the date on which the assessment was completed (schedule 27, education Act 1996 and the education (special educational needs) (England) Regulations 2001).

The notice must be in the form prescribed in schedule 1 of the regulations. The statement must follow the format and contain the information prescribed by the regulations:

All the advice obtained and taken into consideration during the assessment process must be attached as appendices to the statement and must include:

A. Parental evidence, which includes representations presented to the LEA when considering the need for an assessment, parental views and evidence submitted as part of the assessment, and when the statement is finalised any representations and responses to the proposed statement.

B. Educational advice

C. Medical advice

D. Psychological advice

E. Social services advice

F. Any other advice, such as the views of the child, which the LEA or any other body from whom advice is considered desirable. In particular, where the child's parent is a serving member of the armed forces, advice from the Service Children's Education (SCE).