The first step: Early Years Action / School Action

If you and the school decide your child needs some extra or different help, the school will organise it. This might include teaching certain things in a different way, offering extra adult help or organising extra equipment such as a computer.

If your child is in nursery school, this help is called Early Years Action. If he's in school it's called School Action. At this stage, your child's progress will be monitored carefully to see whether the extra support is helping.

Early Years Action Plus / School Action Plus

If your child doesn't seem to be making progress with this extra help, the class teacher or the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) should get in touch with you. At this point, you may both decide to get advice from other people outside the school.

This could be a specialist teacher, an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist or another kind of specialist. This stage is called Early Years Action Plus or School Action Plus, depending on the age of your child.

Statement of Special Educational Needs

If your child still isn't making progress, the first step is to talk with the SENCO at school. You need to discuss

• what kind of support your child is receiving
• what progress your child is making
• what the school intends to do to meet his needs.

If you feel the support your child is receiving isn't meeting his needs and aiding progression, then the next step is for you to contact your Local Education Authority (LEA). You will need to request a statutory assessment of SEN.

This process will take some time. The LEA needs to consider all the evidence - from the school, from you and from health and educational professionals. If they decide your child's needs can't be met through school-based support alone, they may decide to issue a statement of SEN.

How many children have Special Educational Needs?

According to DfES statistics, in January 2004 about 247,600 pupils across all schools in England had a statement of SEN. 60% of these attended mainstream state schools, while 3% attended independent schools. The rest attended special schools or were educated at home or elsewhere.

In this same year there were nearly 1,200,000 children with SEN, but without statements in England. This represents just over 14% of all children across all schools. Around twice as many boys as girls have SEN.

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