SEN & Census - Which students should be reported?

[LosOjos]

I'm a little confused as to which students should be reported as SEN for census purposes.

 

I've always been of the view that an SEN child is a child who is working well below the nationally expected level of work due to underlying problems (and not just that they can't be bothered!)

 

However, a member of our SLT is insisting that our assertive mentoring students should also be reported. These students aren't working below the nationally expected level at all, they are students who aren't quite achieving 5 A* - C's, but have potential to do so and so receive additional support.

 

What do other schools do?

[pavlovs_dog]

Generally, if a student has a Statement of Educational Need then they are categorised as SEN.

 

Areas of need The main areas of difficulty or need are set out in the SEN Code of Practice, Chapter 7. They are Cognition and Learning; Behaviour, Emotional and Social Development; Communication and Interaction; Sensory and/or Physical Needs. To give us more detailed information we have sub-divided some of these the broad areas into thecategories used by Ofsted.

 

These are:

 

A. Cognition and Learning Needs

Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD)

Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD)

Severe Learning Difficulty (SLD)

Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty (PMLD)

 

B. Behaviour, Emotional and Social Development Needs

Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulty (BESD)

 

C. Communication and Interaction Needs

Speech, language and Communication Needs (SLCN)

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

 

D. Sensory and/or Physical Needs

Visual Impairment (VI)

Hearing Impairment (HI)

Multi-Sensory Impairment (MSI)

Physical Disability (PD)

Other (OTH)

 

This category must not be used when the pupil has a statement. If, after looking at Part 2 of the pupil's statement, you are unclear as how to record the pupil's needs please contact the LA who makes and maintains the statement for advice.

 

This category should only be used for pupils at School Action Plus where it is not possible to identify the type of special educational need. With ongoing advice from the school's educational psychologist and other visiting specialist teachers, it is expected that schools should rarely have to use this category.

[JPS]

Apologies if you know this already,

 

From the point of the census, ie what data your MIS should contain, there are 4 categories, N - No provision (ie not SEN), A - School Action, P - School Action Plus and S - Statemented. You need your SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) to confirm which students are either A, P or S. The remaining ones are therefore N. For any A P or S students, you then need to specify their major need(s). If there are more than one, they should be ranked (1,2,3 etc) and your MIS should allow for that data to be entered. This data has no bearing upon whether they can achieve 'x' amount of A-Cs at GCSE for example. Professional staff, such as SENCO, Special Needs teachers, Ed Psych's, Medical/Health staff, are able to assess the student, in numerous ways and are able to determine their situation. It doesnt necessarily have anything to do with the levels they are achieving! Not all SEN students are low performing.

 

Hope this helps, any more queries, by all means send them this way.

Edited January 20, 2011 by JPS
grammar