If your child has special educational needs, these will normally be met in the first instance by the school, with advice from elsewhere as necessary.
If your child’s needs are more significant and likely to be longer-lasting, school-based arrangements may not be enough.
By reviewing your child’s progress regularly, the school may suggest to you that more help is needed beyond its existing resources.
If this is the case, the school may look to the Local Authority (LA) to carry out a Statutory Assessment for your child’s special educational needs.
The Statutory Assessment is a detailed examination of your child’s needs and the most appropriate way to meet them, conducted by the LA.
As a parent, you also have the right to request a Statutory Assessment. In most cases, you should talk to the school first about any needs your child may have as schools should have a budget to pay for additional support for the majority of children with special educational needs.
If you do decide to request a statutory assessment, the LA must look into your request, unless they have already made a Statutory Assessment within the last six months. If after looking at your request, the LA decides a Statutory Assessment is not appropriate they must write and tell you their reasons. They must also tell you that you have the Right to Appeal to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal.
How will the LA decide if my child should be assessed?
To help the LA reach a decision, the school will first be expected to record some important information about your child.
This will be in the form of detailed answers to these three main questions:
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Does your child experience a significant learning difficulty, disability or lack of progress?
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Has the school used its own resources and drawn upon external advice and support in a way which best promotes your child’s learning?
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Has the school tracked your child’s progress in an organised and logical way, by making and reviewing Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and by using the LA’s guidance?
How will the school present relevant information about my child to the LA?
If the school thinks the next step for your child should be Statutory Assessment, then it will set out its answers to these questions under a number of headings on a standard form.
The school’s Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) will normally be responsible for completing this form, to be agreed and countersigned by the Head Teacher.
The school will then invite you to a meeting, when the reasons for putting your child forward for Statutory Assessment will be discussed with you and you will be asked to agree to this next step.
It is very important that you take part in this meeting, so you can make your own views known and contribute any other information that you think the LA should consider.
Who deals with this information?
In Leicester City Council (the Local Authority), the Special Education Service is responsible for managing the statutory assessment process. You can expect to receive a friendly and welcoming service. The staff value your views and your involvement and will make every attempt to provide information in a range of formats and languages so that all parents, including those for whom English is not the first language and disabled parents, can access information.
When the school, or you, refer your child to the Special Education Service, you will be given the name of the Casework Officer allocated to your child’s school.
The Casework Officer’s job at this stage is to study all details provided to see whether or not the information from the school provides sound evidence for a Statutory Assessment to be carried out.
The Casework Officer then takes the referral to a meeting of the LA’s SEN Management Reference Group which meets fortnightly.
Who are the members of the SEN Management Reference Group?
This group is made up of representatives from schools, the Special Education Service, the Education Psychology Service, the Special Needs Teaching Service and the Behaviour Support Services.
The Group will normally agree to requests for Statutory Assessment, unless it has any doubts or questions about the information from the school.
If any questions do arise, the Casework Officer will go back to the school to clarify these uncertainties with the Head Teacher or SENCO.
How will I know if the LA agrees to the school’s request?
If the request to assess your child is agreed, then you will receive a letter very soon afterwards from the Special Education Service, explaining what is involved and asking you for any comments you may wish to make about it going ahead.
By law, the LA has to allow you up to 29 days to respond. The maximum time for a reply in normal circumstances is 6 weeks. Any comments you make will be taken into account.
Once I reply, what will happen next?
If you agree that your child should be assessed, then the Special Education Service will ask for professional reports about your child’s needs (known as ‘advice’) from a number of sources.
These include your child’s school, the local Health Authority, the Local Authority Psychology Service and Children and Young Peoples’ Service. You have a right to be present at any examinations/assessment of your child.
You will be sent a second letter and an information pack for parents at this point, explaining who else is being asked for advice and offering you another chance to express your wishes for your child’s future education. You can put your views forward either verbally or in writing. At this point you can also let the LA know if you would like anyone else to be consulted. If you need help with this, the Parent Partnership Service can help.
The views of your child should also be obtained as part of the assessment process.
In most circumstances, the LA allows advice-givers up to 6 weeks to proceed.
What happens once the advice is collected?
When all the advice is in, it is passed to the Casework Officer to read.
The Casework Officer’s job at this stage is to see from the advice whether or not your child’s special educational needs are likely to require the LA to help the school for the time being with its arrangements to meet those needs.
The LA must then decide within ten weeks whether it will issue a statement.
If extra help for your child is going to be required regularly, over and above what the school could normally provide itself, then the Casework Officer will proceed to draft a Statement of Special Educational Needs. Up to 2 weeks are allowed for this work to be done.
What is a Statement of Special Educational Needs?
A Statement is a legal document that sums up all the advice gathered during assessment. It sets out what your child’s special educational needs are (in Part 2) and the special educational provision required to meet them (in Part 3), names the school where this provision is to be made (in Part 4) and any other non-educational needs and provision affecting arrangements at school (in Parts 5 and 6).
A draft Statement (also known as a ‘proposed wording for a Statement’) then has to be approved by the SEN Management Reference Group.
When it has been approved, it is sent to you, together with copies of all the advice on which it is based, for you to read and consider.
What do I have to do next?
You will receive a response form with the proposed wording.
You should return it to the Special Education Service within 15 days. Alternatively, you can ask for a meeting with your Casework Officer at the LA within 15 days. If after this meeting you still disagree, you have a further 15 days to either put your views in writing or request another meeting. Following this final meeting, you have a final 15 days to put your views in writing to the LA.
You will be asked to say whether or not you agreed with what has been included in the Statement for your child.
You will also be asked to express a preference for the school that the LA should name in Part 4.
When you have returned your form, your views and comments will be carefully considered by your child’s allocated Casework Officer.
Once I have replied, when will my child’s Statement be issued?
Before a Statement can be finalised and come into force officially, the LA has to consult the school it intends to name in Part 4. This is done by letter to the Head Teacher and the Chair of Governors. Again, 15 days are allowed for the school to make any relevant comments, which the LA has to take into account.
If all these steps are completed to your satisfaction and the LA’s, then the Casework Officer will arrange for the Statement to be finalised. It will be signed and dated officially on behalf of the LA and the original document, together with all the originals of the advice, is sent to you for your safe keeping. The named school and the other advice-givers all receive copies of the Final Statement for their information and future reference.
Within two months of your child going to a new school or immediately the statement is finalised if your child is staying in the same school, the school should produce an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for your child. The IEP should be based upon the Statement.
A maximum of 8 weeks is normally allowed from issuing a proposed wording to sending you the final Statement.
What happens if the LA thinks a Statement is not necessary for my child?
If the Casework Officer does not feel that the advice justifies the drafting of a Statement for your child, then instead a special letter to you will be prepared. This is known as a ‘Note in Lieu of a Statement’ and will set out for you in some detail the reasons why a Statement is not felt necessary for your child at present.
When a Note in Lieu is issued, all the originals of the advice on which it has been based will be attached for your information. Copies will be sent to your child’s school and the other advice-givers.
What can I do if I’m not happy with the LA’s decision?
If you disagree with the LA’s decision about your child’s special educational needs, you should first try to sort the matter out with the LA. The Parent Partnership Service can help you with this.
If, after trying this approach, you are still not happy with the LA’s decision, you can appeal against the decision to an independent national body known as the Special Educational Needs & Disability Tribunal. The LA must tell you when you can appeal to the Tribunal and how to go about doing this. You can appeal to the Tribunal if the LA decides not to assess or not to issue a Statement. If the LA does decide to issue a Statement, you can appeal about the description in the statement of your child’s special educational needs, the special educational provision named in the Statement or the school named (or if no school is named, that fact).
You are also entitled to use the disagreement resolution service. If you decide to use the service, it does not affect your legal rights to appeal to the Tribunal. You can do both at the same time.
