This part of the Graduated Approach Toolkit has been created to support parents/carers to understand the processes for supporting children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in education settings such as schools, colleges, nurseries and childminders. The topics included have been chosen with parents/carers, schools and settings in Bury.

Some of the resources have been written with parents/ carers living in Bury, such as the Words Have Power document. We hope you find them useful. The Questions for SENCOs document is based on this toolkit and can support you to have conversations with school staff.

If you would like to be involved in the ongoing development of this section, please contact send.localoffer@bury.gov.uk.

What is SEND?

Children and young people with SEND often find it harder to learn and make progress than their peers, or they face additional challenges that make school or college more difficult for them. This might be, for example, due to difficulties with learning or understanding, emotional needs, communication difficulties and/or physical and sensory needs.

A child/young person is described as having SEND if they have a learning difficulty or disability and they need special educational provision to support them (this means support that is additional to, or different from, what is generally available for other children and young people of the same age). A medical diagnosis is not required to evidence SEND. Overviews of different needs can be found here.

What is a Graduated Approach?

A Graduated Approach is important for supporting children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). It means putting in place and monitoring support over time to see what works. Every child or young person is unique, so a Graduated Approach is the best way to ensure that they receive the right support for them.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice (2014) is the guidance from the government which describes how schools (and other education settings), local authorities and other agencies (such as health and Social Care) should support children/young people with SEND aged 0-25.

The SEND Code of Practice states that schools need to use a Graduated Approach to meet the needs of all of their pupils with SEND. This should be made up of a four-part cycle in which schools:

• Assess the child’s needs

• Plan support to meet the needs and ensure the child can make progress

• Do – put in place the support for an agreed period of time

• Review the progress the child has made as a result of the support

Support can then be adjusted depending on the progress that the child has made. See further information about Assess-Plan-Do-Review.

The following information can be viewed in any order, please click on the headings to read key information under that section. There are a number of linked documents, resources and videos which are free to access and download; we hope you will find them helpful.