What is SEND?

Children with special educational needs have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age.

What does special educational needs mean?

Children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) often need extra help and support to learn. 

The SEND Code of Practice sets out four areas of SEN:

• communicating and interacting
• cognition and learning
• social, emotional and mental health difficulties 
• sensory or physical needs

Communicating and interacting

Speech, language, and communication difficulties make it difficult for a child or young person to understand how to communicate effectively or appropriately with others.

Cognition and learning

Children and young people with cognitive and learning difficulties:

• learn at a slower pace than others their age
• find it hard to understand parts of the curriculum
• have difficulties in organising themselves or remembering things
• have a specific difficulty with one particular part of their learning, such as literacy or numeracy

Social, emotional and mental health issues 

This means a child or young person:

• finds managing relationships difficult 
• is withdrawn
• behaves in a way that causes problems for themselves and others

Sensory or physical needs

This includes visual or hearing impairments, or a physical need that means they require extra ongoing support and equipment.

Some children have needs in more than one of these areas.  An easy read guide about SEND support is available for parents, and for children and young people on the GOV.UK website.

How a disability is different to SEN

Not all children with special educational needs are considered to be disabled. The Equality Act 2010 describes a disability as:

A physical or mental impairment, which has a long term (a year or more) and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities.

This includes sensory impairments, such as those affecting sight or hearing, and long-term conditions such as asthma, epilepsy and cancer.

Children and young people with such conditions don't necessarily have SEN, but there are significant overlaps between disabled children and young people and those with SEN. 

If a disabled child or young person needs special educational provision they're also covered by the SEN definition. 

Plymouth's Local Offer is organised into four main categories covering the following age ranges:

• Early years (0 to 5 years old)
• Primary (5 to 11 years old)
• Secondary (11 to 18 years old)
• Preparing for adulthood

 Plymouth Local Offer homepage

Is the information correct?

Let us know if the information on this page is wrong and needs to be updated.