SEND Support in Schools: A Parent's Complete Guide

SEND support is the help your child gets at school without an education, health and care plan, and it is where the overwhelming majority of children with special educational needs sit. At the January 2026 school census, 1,319,780 pupils in England were on SEN support, 14.8 per cent of the total, up from 14.2 per cent a year earlier. A further 538,547 pupils, 6.0 per cent, had an EHC plan. Together that is more than 1.8 million children, 91,400 more than in 2025.

Those two categories behave completely differently in law, and parents are rarely told which one they are in. This guide sets out what a school must actually do at SEN support, what it has to pay for, who is accountable, and the point at which you should stop negotiating and request a needs assessment instead.

SEN support and SEND support: the same thing

Parents say SEND support. The law says SEN support. SEND stands for special educational needs and disabilities, and it is the umbrella term used by the department and by schools; SEN support is the specific name given in the SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years to provision made for a pupil who does not have a plan. If a school tells you your child is "on the SEN register" or "at SEN support", it means the same thing.

The legal anchor is section 66 of the Children and Families Act 2014: a mainstream school must use its best endeavours to make sure a pupil with SEN gets the special educational provision their learning difficulty calls for. That is a real duty, but a soft one. There is no tribunal you can take a school to for failing at SEN support, which is precisely why the evidence trail matters so much.

The four broad areas of need

The Code groups needs into four areas. A child can sit in more than one, and the label is meant to guide provision rather than define the child.

• Communication and interaction. Speech, language and communication needs are the single largest category, accounting for 25.7 per cent of pupils on SEN support. Autism also sits here.
• Cognition and learning. Moderate, severe and profound learning difficulties, plus specific difficulties such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia.
• Social, emotional and mental health. The second largest group at SEN support, 24.8 per cent. It covers anxiety and withdrawal as much as disruptive behaviour.
• Sensory and physical. Vision impairment, hearing impairment, multi-sensory impairment and physical disability.

The graduated approach: assess, plan, do, review

SEN support is not a fixed package. It is a four-stage cycle the school is expected to run and to repeat, sharpening the provision each time round.

• Assess. The teacher and SENCO analyse the child's need using teacher assessment, progress data, previous progress and attainment, the views of the child and parents, and where relevant external specialists.
• Plan. The school agrees with parents the outcomes sought, the interventions and support, and a clear review date. Parents should be given this in writing.
• Do. The class teacher remains responsible for the pupil's work even where an intervention is delivered by a teaching assistant away from the class.
• Review. The school evaluates the impact against the agreed outcomes, and the cycle restarts with revised targets.

The Code expects this to happen at least three times a year, in line with the school's own assessment cycle. If you have had one meeting in September and nothing since, the graduated approach is not running.

What schools must pay for

Every mainstream school gets a notional SEN budget inside its core funding. The expectation for 2026 to 2027 is unchanged: the school meets the first £6,000 a year of additional support costs for an individual pupil, and where a pupil's support costs more, top-up funding from the local authority's high needs block covers the excess.

Two things follow that parents are often told the opposite of. First, "we have no funding" is not a lawful reason to provide nothing, because the first £6,000 is already in the school's budget. Second, £6,000 is a funding assumption rather than a ceiling on the duty; a school cannot cap provision at the money and call the job done.

Who does what

• The class or subject teacher is accountable for the progress of the pupil. This is stated plainly in the Code and is the sentence most worth quoting in a meeting.
• The SENCO coordinates provision, advises staff, liaises with parents and external agencies, and keeps the school's records. Every mainstream school must have a designated qualified teacher acting as SENCO.
• The governing body or trust must publish a SEN information report annually, setting out the school's arrangements, and review it each year. It is a public document, it is usually on the school website, and reading it before you enrol tells you more than any open evening. Our guide to choosing a school covers what else to look for.
• The local authority must publish a Local Offer describing the provision it expects to be available across education, health and social care.

What SEN support looks like in practice

Good SEN support is usually unglamorous and mostly happens in the classroom. Typical elements include seating and grouping changes, chunked instructions and visual timetables, pre-teaching of vocabulary, small-group phonics or numeracy interventions on a fixed cycle, movement breaks, an agreed exit card, coloured overlays or a laptop for recording, adapted homework, a key adult for check-ins, and referral to the local speech and language or educational psychology service.

What good SEN support is not: a teaching assistant permanently velcroed to one child. The evidence has been against that model for over a decade, and the Code is clear that support should build independence, not replace it.

How to escalate, in order

1. Ask for the plan in writing. Outcomes, provision, frequency, who delivers it, review date. If it cannot be written down, it probably is not happening.
2. Ask what the last cycle achieved. Specific data, not "he's doing much better in himself".
3. Ask the SENCO for external advice to be commissioned, or ask why it has not been.
4. Go to the headteacher, then the governors, through the school's published complaints procedure.
5. Request an EHC needs assessment. You can do this yourself, in a letter or an email, and the school's agreement is not required. Two or three documented cycles of assess, plan, do, review that have not closed the gap is the evidence the council will be looking for. See what an EHCP actually covers and how to apply.

Moving schools is sometimes the right answer too, though it rarely fixes the underlying provision on its own.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is SEND support in school?

SEND support, usually written SEN support in the legislation, is the help a mainstream school puts in place from its own resources for a child with special educational needs who does not have an education, health and care plan. It covers everything from a phonics intervention group to a personalised timetable, and it is the level almost every child with SEN starts at. In January 2026, 1,319,780 pupils in England were on SEN support, 14.8 per cent of all pupils.

What is the difference between SEN support and an EHCP?

SEN support is discretionary provision the school arranges and funds itself. An EHC plan is a legal document issued by the local authority that specifies provision the council must secure. SEN support has no legal enforcement route; an EHC plan does. Roughly one child in seven is on SEN support, and one in seventeen has a plan.

Do I need a diagnosis for my child to get SEN support?

No. The SEND Code of Practice is explicit that a diagnosis is not required, and identification is based on whether a child needs provision different from or additional to that normally available. Waiting years for an autism or ADHD assessment is not a reason for a school to do nothing in the meantime.

How much does a school have to spend on SEN support?

Mainstream schools are expected to meet the first £6,000 a year of additional support costs for an individual pupil from their notional SEN budget. Where the cost goes above that, top-up funding from the local authority's high needs block is meant to cover the excess. The £6,000 figure is a funding expectation, not a cap on what a school must provide.

Who is responsible for my child's SEN support?

The class or subject teacher, not the teaching assistant and not the SENCO. The Code of Practice puts the accountability for the progress and development of a pupil with SEN squarely on the teacher who works with them day to day. The SENCO coordinates, advises and keeps records; every mainstream school must have one.

What can I do if SEN support is not working?

Ask for the review meeting in writing and ask for the evidence: what was tried, for how long, and what the data shows. If two or three cycles of assess, plan, do, review have not shifted things, that record is the strongest possible basis for requesting an education, health and care needs assessment. You do not need the school's agreement to make that request.

Sources

• Department for Education, Special educational needs in England, academic year 2025/26 (January 2026 census): explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk
• SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015), chapter 6 on schools: gov.uk
• The notional SEN budget for mainstream schools: operational guidance 2026 to 2027: gov.uk
• Children and Families Act 2014, section 66: legislation.gov.uk