Working through your SEN identification process

The special educational needs and disability code of practice, 0 to 25 years (2015) states that:

'All schools should have a clear approach to identifying and responding to SEN. The benefits of early identification are widely recognised – identifying need at the earliest point and then making effective provision improves long-term outcomes for the child or young person.'

In principle, this makes sense: the sooner a pupil’s needs are identified, the sooner the right provision can be put in place to support them.

However, in practice, making decisions about what constitutes SEN (or otherwise) is not always so straightforward.

More than half of the differences in identification are a result of the school the child attends

The DfE’s most recent annual special educational needs statistics report shows that, currently, 15.9% of all pupils in the UK are identified with a special educational need (14.1% of pupils in mainstream schools).  

Analysing the report, which also shows the breakdown of primary areas of need, raises questions about how schools are ‘categorising’ what the type of need is. For example, around 18% of pupils are identified as having moderate learning difficulties (MLD), yet there is no national definition of what actually constitutes MLD.

What influences SEN identification?

So are schools using the same criteria to make decisions about SEN identification? Recent research by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) suggests not.

Its report ‘Identifying pupils with special educational needs and disabilities’ concludes that the primary school a child attends makes more difference to their chances of being identified with SEND than anything about them as an individual, their experiences or the local authority they live in.

The EPI refers to this as a ‘postcode lottery’ and notes that more than half of the differences in identification are a result of the school the child attends.

According to the report, factors at school level that impacted on identification include the following.

• Prior rates of SEND: where schools had high levels of identification, this tended to persist over time.
• Ofsed inspection judgements: there was a higher rate of identification in schools judged as ‘requires improvement’.
• School type: Academies had lower rates of SEN than local authority schools.
• Class size: Smaller classes were more likely to have higher levels of SEN identification.

The report also considers the range of child factors that impacted on identification.

• Children’s birth month: summer-born children were overrepresented, suggesting a failure to take into account normal development differences over the course of twelve months.
• Gender: Boys were twice as likely to be identified with SEND as girls.
• Ethnicity: Gypsy/Roma and Traveller, Black Caribbean, and mixed white and Black Caribbean children were overrepresented among children identified with SEND.
• Disadvantage: An estimated 25% to 35% of disadvantaged children were identified with SEND.   

The impact of the pandemic

In addition to these factors, SENCOs and headteachers have reported an increase in the challenges associated with SEN identification since the start of the pandemic.

When leaders make decisions regarding whether a pupil requires ‘catch-up’ support or longer-term provision, they need to be asking questions such as the following.   

• Where gaps in learning have increased, is this as a result of missed learning due to lockdown or is there an additional need?
• Where pupils are increasingly displaying mental health issues, are these due to a short-term need as a result of the pandemic, or is it a longer-term need that requires special educational provision?
• Where parents have raised concerns about their child’s progress, behaviour or mental health as a result of their experiences while home schooling, are these concerns replicated at school and what can be done to ensure parents and teachers are working together to address these concerns?
• Where concerns had been raised about a pupil prior to lockdown, has the disruption in school attendance /lack of access to specialist assessments stalled potential identification for individuals?

It is important to have clear and robust criteria about what constitutes SEN in the school and to ensure everyone knows and understands it

The outcomes of the EPI report suggest that greater quality and consistency around identification is needed.

The authors of the report recommend that, at a national level, this needs to include provision of specialist SEND training for school leaders, increased access to educational psychologists and the development of a framework of national expectations around SEND.

The outcomes of the pending DfE SEND review may address some of these recommendations, but in the meantime what can leaders do to support a more consistent approach to SEN identification within their school?

1. Clarify the definition of SEND

The process of identifying SEND and understanding the profile of individuals who have, or may have, additional needs should begin at whole-school level and be built into the overall approach to monitoring the progress and development of all pupils.

It is important to have clear and robust criteria about what constitutes SEN in the school and to ensure everyone knows and understands it.

The criteria should be based on the definition of SEN in the code of practice:

'A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.'

In this case, a learning difficulty is defined as being when a pupil has ‘a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age’.

What is meant by ‘a significantly greater difficulty’, however, is open to interpretation. The code does provide guidance around this, indicating that a pupil may have SEN if their progress:

• is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
• fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress
• fails to close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
• widens the gap.

It can include progress in areas other than attainment – for instance, communication, social skills, behaviour, emotional health or physical development.

2. Embed a whole-school graduated approach

Deciding whether a pupil’s needs align with the above criteria should be built into the school’s graduated approach to SEND.

Initially, the graduated approach involves teachers using the information they gather from their ongoing, day-to-day assessment to make judgements about the progress a pupil is making and to alert them to any barriers that may be getting in the way.

It can be useful for SENCOs to develop a flowchart or diagram for staff to provide clarity about the steps to take

The information gathered can then be used to evidence where pupils may be struggling to make progress. Decisions can be made based on whether the concern is:

a. recent or likely to be temporary (in which case short-term provision, such as catch-up intervention, is likely to get the pupil back on track)

or

b. likely to be a persistent and long-term concern (which may be an indication that special educational provision is required).

3. Establish a process for initial concern

Many schools have an ‘initial concerns’ form for teachers to complete to record the relevant information and to share during a discussion with the SENCO and / or parents.

This is likely to include the following:

• the pupil’s strengths and interests
• areas of concern / needs, including evidence
• outcomes of any conversations with the pupil, their parents or staff
• evidence of high-quality teaching strategies already tried and impact
• next steps agreed.

Evidence of concerns may come through a variety of sources, such as teacher assessment, standardised assessments, observation, behaviour logs or discussions with pupils, parents or staff.

When evidencing areas of concern, it is often useful for teachers to provide detail where this is known, for example to identify if a pupil has difficulties with their memory, following instructions or decoding words.

Further discussions with the pupil and their parents will also be invaluable

4. Establish ways of providing further assessment

On occasions, a pupil may require additional assessment to enable more precise identification, sometimes even leading to a formal diagnosis if appropriate. Depending on the exact nature of the assessments required, this might carried out by the teacher or arranged by the SENCO and could include:

• use of standardised tests, e.g. for reading, spelling or maths
• other diagnostic assessments, such as verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests or cognitive abilities tests (CATs)
• use of profiling tools to identify detailed needs, e.g. for speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)
• observation schedules, e.g. to identify patterns in participation, behaviour, social interaction
• screening assessments, e.g. for dyslexia or dyspraxia
• advice from a specialist professional, such as an educational psychologist, speech therapist, social worker or health professional.

Further discussions with the pupil and their parents will also be invaluable at this point. This will enable the school to gather more detailed information on the pupil’s home life, what the pupil is like outside school, the pupil’s views on school and learning or strategies the parents use at home to support their child.   

5. Share information and plan next steps

Once all the relevant information about the needs of the pupil have been identified, this needs to be shared with parents and staff who will be working with the pupil.

This should be done through the Assess, Plan, Do, Review process and include the development of a ‘pupil passport’ or ‘one-page profile’.

The information should then be used to agree relevant strategies and additional provision or interventions to address the identified needs.

The approach to identification should be set out clearly in the SEND policy and also be detailed in the school’s SEN information report.

Communicating the process

In order to share the process for identification, it can be useful for SENCOs to develop a flowchart or diagram for staff to provide clarity about the steps to take if they have concerns about a pupil.

The approach to identification should be set out clearly in the SEND policy and also be detailed in the school’s SEN information report.  

Effective communication of the process is essential to ensure the high-quality, consistent approach that is required to support accurate identification of SEN need.