Special educational needs assessment

Special educational needs assessment

What is a statutory assessment of special educational needs?

The special educational needs Code of Practice, sets out the criteria for deciding whether to undertake a statutory assessment.

A statutory assessment takes up to six months to complete, from the time of the initial request.

A statutory assessment can be requested by:

• a parent;
• the school or pre-school setting;
• health professionals.

There are guiding criteria for agreeing assessment. However, every child's needs will be considered individually. Schools  and other services and agencies provide evidence of the child's needs and progress, which will help to decide whether or not the assessment should proceed.

Evidence should demonstrate that the child’s special educational needs:

• are significant and complex
• have not responded to relevant and purposeful measures put in place by the school and supporting outside agencies
• may call for support that cannot usually be provided by a mainstream school from its own resources

Advice and support to parents/carers

If your child has had support at Early Years Action, Early Years Action Plus, School Action or School Action Plus for several months, and you do not think they have made progress, you may want to talk to your school or nursery special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) about a statutory assessment. This is an assessment of how your child is doing in a number of areas, and may lead to a ‘statement’.  A statement will say what the school or nursery can do to help your child and will usually provide some extra hours of support.

• First of all, talk to your child’s teacher or to the SENCO at your school.
• If you want to ask for a statutory assessment yourself, write to:
  
  Special educational needs
  Children’s Services, Cambridge House 
  Cambridge Grove, London W6 OLE
   
• Tell them your child’s name, date of birth and the school or nursery they go to.
• You should also give the names and contact details of any professionals working with your child.
• When we receive a request for a statutory assessment, we have six weeks to decide whether or not to agree. If we decide not to agree, we will write to you to explain why.

It is important to understand that you are asking us to assess your child.  This assessment will identify any difficulties and suggest strategies and programmers of work that might help.  The assessment may result in a statement.  However, we may decide that the assessment identifies needs that can be effectively supported by the school or nursery.  In this case, we will issue a ‘note-in-lieu’ of (a note instead of) a statement to help your child’s teachers support them.

The statutory assessment period is six months from the date we receive your request to the time when we issue the final statement, if we decide to do this. During this time, our educational psychology service and the NHS Hammersmith & Fulham will arrange appointments to assess your child.  It is very important that your child goes to these appointments. If they miss any, this will delay the process and will delay help for your child.

Timescales

Week 1-6: A decision is made whether to assess the child
Week 7-16: Assessments and advice are sought and a decision is made whether to issue a statement or a note in lieu
Week 17-18: A proposed statement or a note in lieu is issued
Week 19-26: A Final Statement is issued

The special needs assessment and provision team (SNAPT)

The school submits reports and assessments to the SNAPT panel. The panel considers the request for statutory assessment, along with evidence that your child is not achieving at an appropriate level.

The panel considers a wide range of issues and concerns about the special educational needs of children and young people aged 2 – 19.

It consists of the Head of SEN, the principal educational psychologist, principal adviser, inclusion services, and a representative from the sensory language impairment team, and the children’s disability team.  Headteachers and SENCOs sit on the panel on a rotational basis.

SEN case officers attend panel to minute the discussion and answer any queries from the panel members regarding your child.  Panel recommendations are then typed up by the case officer for the chair of panel to review first for accuracy of recording and are then released to the parents and other professionals.  Case officers aim to get the panel recommendations relayed no later than 10 working days from date of the panel meeting.

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