This section examines the definitions of special educational needs (SEN), the principles behind how provision is made, and some of the supporting services that are available.
A pupil is defined as having special educational needs (SEN) if he or she has a learning difficulty which requires “special educational provision” to be made for him or her.
Arrangements for identifying and providing for children with special educational needs are set out in the Education Act 1996 . This is supported by the Code of Practice – Special Educational Needs, which was issued in
November 2001. (This is available to order or download from the
Teachernet website.)
The Code of Practice offers this further definition of what constitutes SEN:
“Children have a learning difficulty if they:
(a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age; or
(b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local education authority
(c) are under compulsory school age and fall within the definition at (a) or (b) above or would do so if special educational provision was not made for them.

Children must not be regarded as having a learning difficulty solely because the language or form of language of their home is different from the language in which they will be taught. Special educational provision means:
 for children of two or over, educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children of their age in schools maintained by the LEA, other than special schools, in the area.
 for children under two, educational provision of any kind.”
The Code of Practice states that the following fundamental principles should be observed when making provision for pupils with special educational needs:
 A child with special educational needs should have their needs met;
 The special educational needs of children will normally be met in mainstream schools or settings;
 The views of the child should be sought and taken into account;
 Parents have a vital role to play in supporting their child’s education;
 Children with special educational needs should be offered full access to a broad, balanced and relevant education, including an appropriate curriculum for the foundation stage and the National Curriculum.
There are broadly three levels of provision for children with special educational needs. These apply in all mainstream settings and are as follows:
 Action;

 Action Plus;
 Statutory assessment.
Action
This stage involves the child’s teacher or SEN coordinator identifying a special educational need, and then devising interventions that are additional to or different from those provided as part of the setting’s usual curriculum offer or strategies. The triggers for ‘Action’ could be a teacher’s or parent’s concern about a child who, despite receiving appropriate education:
 makes little or no progress even where teaching is particularly targeted to improve the child’s identified area of weakness;
 continues working at levels significantly below those expected for children of a similar age in certain areas;
 presents persistent emotional and/or behavioural difficulties that are not ameliorated by the behaviour management techniques usually employed in that setting;
 has sensory or physical problems and continues to make little or no progress despite the provision of personal aids and equipment;
 has communication and/or interaction difficulties and requires specific individual interventions in order to access learning.
Schools and early years providers will fund Action from existing resources delegated to them under existing funding regimes. The strategies employed at this stage should be set out in an individual education plan
(IEP). Progress in implementing an IEP should be reviewed regularly.

Action Plus
The next level of provision is termed ‘Action Plus’. This brings in the involvement of external support services. These can:
 help the education setting with advice on new IEPs and targets;
 provide more specialist assessments;
 give advice on the use of new or specialist strategies or materials;
 in some cases, provide support for particular activities.
The triggers for seeking help from outside agencies in addition to the
Action programme could be that, despite receiving help under an IEP, the child:
 continues to make little or no progress in specific areas over a long period;
 continues working at a curriculum level substantially below that expected of children of a similar age;
 has emotional or behavioural difficulties that substantially and regularly interfere with the child’s own learning or that of the group, despite having an individualised behaviour management programme;
 has sensory or physical needs, and requires additional equipment or regular visits for direct intervention or advice by practitioners from a specialist service;
 has ongoing communication or interaction difficulties that impede the development of social relationships and cause substantial barriers to learning.

Action Plus can be funded from resources delegated to the school, if that is part of the relevant LEA’s funding formula, or it can be met from budgets controlled by the LEA in the Schools Block.
Statutory assessment
This process may lead to the third level of assistance available to a child with special educational needs. The request for a statutory assessment may come from the child’s educational setting, a parent or referral from another agency. The request will be based on the belief that, despite assistance under Action and Action Plus programmes, the child is not making sufficient progress and requires further special educational provision. If the LEA undertakes a statutory assessment and concludes that this is the case, it will specify what additional support is necessary by making a ‘statement’ (see below).
A statutory assessment referral will first involve the LEA considering what additional provision has been made so far and whether this has been effective. The evidence considered at this stage will include:
 the recorded views of the parents and child, where ascertainable;
 copies of IEPs at each previous stage;
 evidence of the child’s progress;
 copies of advice from other agencies;
 evidence from specialists with relevant knowledge and experience outside the normal competence of the school;
 evidence of the extent to which the school has followed the advice from professionals with relevant specialist knowledge.
Having reviewed this evidence, the LEA may conclude that assistance under Action and Action Plus is satisfactory and it is not necessary to

proceed with a statutory assessment. Where it believes a child’s needs are not being fully met, the LEA has a duty under Section 323 of the
Education Act 1996 to identify and make a statutory assessment of those children for whom they are responsible who have special educational needs and are likely to need a statement.
The LEA must follow a defined path in undertaking a statutory assessment. This involves written notifications to interested parties and ensuring that the procedures and the rights of those concerned are clearly set out. Once a referral has been made to the LEA, it has six weeks to decide whether the statutory assessment should proceed. If a decision is made to proceed, the next stage is the formal assessment that will determine whether or not a statement of SEN should be issued.
The statement
A statutory assessment will not always lead to the production of a statement. The process may conclude that the setting in which the child is being educated can meet his or her needs without further special educational provision determined by the LEA through a statement. For example, a particular piece of equipment, supported by appropriate specialist advice, may enable the school to meet the child’s needs.
However, where the statutory assessment concludes that a statement is required, this will take a form prescribed by regulations under the 1996
Education Act . The statement must show:
 Introduction – personal details of the child;
 Special educational needs – details of each and every one of the child’s special educational needs identified during the statutory assessment;
 Special educational provision – details of the objectives of that provision, the provision itself and arrangements for monitoring;

 Placement – the type and name of the school where the provision is to be made;
 Non-educational needs – all relevant non-educational needs identified with other agencies (e.g. health or social services);
 Non-educational provision – details of the provision to meet the needs identified in the previous section.
Before a statement is finalised, the LEA must conduct a consultation process to ensure that all parties involved are satisfied with the contents of the statement.
In line with the national policy on inclusion, the majority of statements will be issued for pupils in mainstream schools. The alternative is for the statement to specify a place in a special school maintained by the LEA, or in a special school – which may be residential – operated by another LEA or by the non-maintained sector.
Where a statement is issued for a child in a mainstream school, the method of funding will depend on the local formula. It is now widespread practice for statement funds to be delegated to schools as part of their formula budget. This normally involves allocating the statement against one of a number of ‘bands’ that carries with it a cash value. The school must then use that funding to fulfil the provision as detailed in the statement. LEAs will normally monitor the use of delegated statement funds by schools, to ensure that use of resources matches the needs of the individual pupil.
Alternatively, the provision may be retained in Schools Block budgets that are controlled by the LEA. This means that the school has little or no direct control over the way that the resources are deployed to meet the child’s needs. The cost of placements outside the LEA’s area are also held in budgets in the non-delegated part of the Schools Block. Such arrangements are often very expensive compared with the alternative of

making provision within the LEA area. This is because placements in other areas are usually necessitated by complex and profound special educational needs.
It is important that distant placements are monitored by LEAs to ensure that the needs of the child are being fully met. The Local Government
Association and the National Association of Independent Schools & Non-
Maintained Special Schools have collaborated to produce a model contract between LEAs and independent or non-maintained providers that sets out the terms and conditions underlying a placement. The document, last updated in June 2004, is recommended by all relevant government departments and national bodies.
The latest provisional national statistics release on special educational needs for all schools in England as at January 2005 identified that nationally there were 242,600 pupils with statements of special educational needs (SEN) as extracted from the annual school census data.
This figure represents 2.9% of the school population. The percentage of these pupils placed in maintained mainstream schools was around 60% while the percentage placed in special schools or pupil referral units was around 35.2%.
At January 2005 there were 1,230,800 pupils with SEN without statements. This represented 14.9% of the school population – a slight increase compared to the previous year (source: SFR 24/2005 dated 30
June 2005). For more information on national statistics, see the DfES website.

Inclusion
The government is firmly committed to promoting inclusion by choice. The key objectives must be to safeguard the interests of all children and ensure that they achieve their full potential. Where parents want a mainstream setting for their child, the DfES policy is to try to provide it.
Equally, where more specialist provision is sought, it is important and right that parents’ wishes are respected. This is a cornerstone of the
Department’s strategy for raising standards of achievement and meeting the educational needs of all children.
The Department’s policy on inclusion is set out in Excellence for All
Children: Meeting Special Educational Needs . The current position is also detailed in the SEN Code of Practice .
Funding
The government intends to maintain progress in enabling more parents to feel confident that their child’s needs can be met in a mainstream school.
Schools will need to have regard to their development plan and their LEA’s policy on inclusion as set out in the current agreed Children and Young
People’s Plan.
Funding to support training to equip staff, governors and educational psychologists with the skills and competencies needed to improve the education of children with SEN has been made available to LEAs under the
Standards Fund for the maintained and non-maintained schools in their area. The SEN Standards Fund also supported innovative local inclusion and emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) projects.
The SEN Standards Fund ceased to be provided from 2004/05. Funding is now decided locally.

In addition, the Schools Access initiative , which supports projects to make schools more accessible, is providing £100 million per year from 2004/05 to 2007/08.
Promoting good practice: regional projects
The SEN Regional Co-ordination Projects, now known as SEN Regional
Partnerships, which cover the whole of England, are also helping to promote inclusion. The projects bring together groups of local authorities and other local partners and aim to redress, through collaborative planning and working, the variations in access to, and the quality of, provision and services for pupils with special needs. Details of the regional projects and their interlinked websites can be accessed through the
Teachernet website.
Schools’ special educational needs policy
All pupils with SEN must have their needs addressed, via a broad and balanced education. In most cases, it is the pupil’s mainstream school that will make this provision. Headteachers should ensure that pupils with SEN engage in all the regular activities of the school, so far as is reasonably practicable and is compatible with:
 the pupil receiving the special educational provision which his/her learning difficulty calls for;
 the provision of efficient education for the pupils with whom he or she will be educated;
 the efficient use of resources.
In meeting these responsibilities, schools must have regard to the Code of
Practice on identifying and assessing SEN. Maintained schools are required to publish information about their SEN policy in the governing body’s annual report. This must describe principles on allocating resources

among SEN pupils, and should be accessible to the whole school community.
SEN coordinator (SENCO)
All mainstream schools must appoint a designated teacher, the special educational needs coordinator (SENCO), who is responsible for the day-today operation of the school’s SEN policy. He or she will coordinate provision for pupils with SEN, maintain the SEN register and liaise with parents, staff and external agencies. Headteachers should take practical steps to ensure that SENCOs have the time and resources they need for this role. Guidance is provided in the Code of Practice and the SEN Toolkit, which contains practical advice on how to implement the code.
National Standards produced by the Training and Development Agency for
Schools (formerly the Teacher Training Agency) include a definition of the context in which the coordination of SEN provision within a school is likely to be effective and set out the additional knowledge, understanding, skills, attributes and expertise required by those coordinating SEN provision in a school.
Special educational needs (SEN) tribunal
The Special Educational Needs (SEN) Tribunal was established in 1994 and currently operates in accordance with Sections 333 to 336 of the
Education Act 1996 and associated regulations. It is a non-departmental public body that exists to resolve disputes between parents and LEAs with regard to SEN provision for children. Cases are heard by a panel consisting of a chair and two lay members. Hearings are normally held at a location within easy travelling distance of the parents’ home.
The Tribunal has a guidance booklet for parents entitled “How to Appeal” .
LEAs should ensure parents get a copy of this booklet when they decide to make an appeal. To help parents prepare for hearings, the Tribunal has also produced a video which shows them what to expect; this is

dispatched when a hearing is scheduled. Although funded by the DfES, the
Tribunal is independent and designed to provide an impartial forum in which SEN disputes can be resolved according to the respective merits of each side’s case.
Parent partnerships
The importance of effective partnerships with parents was one of the key themes in the government’s Green Paper Excellence for all Children:
Meeting Special Educational Needs . The Department expects all LEAs to provide a parent partnership service. This includes dispute resolution arrangements, and ensuring that parents of children with SEN have access to independent information and advice about SEN procedures, school based provision, support available for their child and additional sources of help and information, such as voluntary organisations and childcare information services.
LEAs are also required to ensure parents have access to an independent parental supporter (IPS) and are responsible for their recruitment and training. The National Parent Partnership Network , operated by the
National Children’s Bureau, provides a central source of advice, information and training for parent partnership services. The Network maintains a database of services and can provide contact details for individual services across the country. Arrangements for advice and information for parents were made statutory by the Special Educational
Needs and Disability Act 2001, which inserted a new Section 332A in the
Education Act 1996.
NB: Although the term ‘parent partnership’ is used, provision of services applies to all carers of children with SEN.
Special schools
A special school is one that is specifically organised to make special educational provision for pupils with special educational needs. Special

schools maintained by the LEA comprise community special schools and foundation special schools; non-maintained special schools are approved by the secretary of state under Section 342 of the Education Act 1996 .
The national trend in the numbers of maintained special schools over recent years has been a reduction from 1,191 schools in 1996 to 1,113 schools in 2001 and 1,049 in January 2005. The average size of maintained schools rose to 81 pupils in 2001 and 82 in 2005, from 77 in
1996. The number of non-maintained special schools fell from 72 in 1996 to 62 in 2001, but had risen to 73 by January 2005. The pupil/teacher ratio in 2001 was 6.6: 1 for maintained special schools, while the ratio for non-maintained special schools was 4.8: 1.
SEN transport
The basic duty for LEAs to provide transport to and from school is set out in the Education Act 1996 , Section 509 (1) (4), as follows:
 an LEA shall make such arrangements for the provision of transport as it considers necessary for the purpose of facilitating the attendance of persons receiving education at school;
 the LEA has a duty to make arrangements to provide transport where it considers it necessary to do so;
 the LEA has discretion to decide whether or not it is necessary to make arrangements to provide transport.
Parents or carers must do what is reasonably practicable to ensure their child attends school, including accompanying their child to school. LEAs are required to make transport arrangements free of charge to enable attendance of pupils of compulsory school age at school where:
 the school at which the child is a registered pupil is not within walking distance of the child’s home; and

 no arrangements can be made for a child to attend a suitable school nearer home.
Walking distance is defined under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 as:
 three miles for a child who has attained the age of eight years;
 two miles for a child of statutory school age who is under eight years.
In relation to children with special educational needs who are within the distance criteria, the LEA will take the extent of learning difficulty, mobility, social communication, sensory or physical impairment into account. However, the LEA cannot provide transport if the main consideration is to allow parents to work. The decision on whether to include individual travel needs in a child’s statement will be made by the
SEN Panel, subject to annual review in accordance with the SEN Code of
Practice .
If transport is included in a statement, the LEA will provide transport at the start and the end of the school day. Pupils will travel on public transport unless their needs are so complex that this would compromise educational benefit, in which case the LEA will provide a minibus or taxi service. Where the placement is at a school which is further away as a result of parental preference, the parents are responsible for meeting transport costs in line with the SEN Code of Practice.
For further information on home to school transport, see the Access section .
Escorts
If the SEN statement identifies that a child needs to be accompanied to school and it is not possible for parents to provide this support, the LEA

will provide an escort. The role of the escort is to support the safety and wellbeing of passengers with special educational needs.
Educational psychology service
In its report published in July 2000, the Educational Psychology Working
Group defined the function of educational psychologists (EPs) in the following terms:
“To promote child development and learning through the application of
Psychology by working with individuals and groups of children, teachers and other adults in schools, families, other LEA officers, health and social services and other agencies”.
The report identified three core areas of activity for educational psychology services:
 early years work;
 work with schools; and
 multi-agency work.
It further stated that “core work for educational psychology services should focus around assessment, early intervention and consultation work at a number of levels with children and young people aged 0-19, where there are concerns about their cognitive, linguistic, sensory, physical and or social and emotional development”.
Such work would be undertaken with individual children; groups of children; schools and early years providers; LEAs and other agencies.
To achieve the overall aim of the service, certain principles need to be adopted; early intervention at pre school level is a priority. It is necessary to ensure that services are provided in school settings as well as in local authority and family settings; that multi-agency approaches are developed

to support schools and parents; and that the service is accessible to users independently of schools. The service also needs to be clearly linked to, and be able to influence the LEA strategies to meet local and national priorities for raising standards in schools and supporting inclusion.
The report went on to identify a number of good practice recommendations for a range of its stakeholders based on research carried out with users of the service. These included the following:
Schools
 Each school should have one nominated educational psychologist, and the time spent in schools should be maximised, the absolute minimum being one visit per term.
 The most effective support to schools was considered to be based on the pyramid/family group model with an individual educational psychologist supporting a secondary school and its feeder primary schools. The advantage of this is continuity in support for individual children as they progress through their school career.
Parents
 Need readily available information on the services provided and easily accessible advice and consultation.
 Where possible the service should provide continuity for parent and child.
Multi-agency work
 LEAs should establish a formal structure to determine and prioritise areas for collaborative working, joint planning and provision with health and social services, and investigate the opportunities for jointly funded posts.

 Educational psychology services should play a key role in working with looked after children to ensure that there are closer links between education and care plans.
LEA
 LEAs should involve educational psychology services in establishing robust and coherent criteria to determine the thresholds for SEN school based provision and statutory assessment. Schools need to have clear criteria for initiating a statutory assessment and clear expectations in relation to school provision for special educational needs and funding.
 The service should be developed to engage in more preventative work.
This report of the Educational Psychologists Working Group is available from the Teachernet website.
Legal background
Section 19(2) and Schedule 1 of the Education Act 1996 is the primary legislation about pupil referral units (PRUs). PRUs are legally a type of school established and maintained by a local education authority to provide suitable alternative education, on a temporary basis, for children of compulsory school age who may not be able to attend a mainstream school. Under the Act, a PRU may also be defined as a place for education otherwise than at school. The Act states that any school established and maintained by a local education authority which:
(a) is specially organised to provide education for such children; and
(b) is not a county or special school

shall be known as a ‘pupil referral unit’.
Provision
The focus of PRUs should be to get pupils back into a mainstream school.
Pupils in the units may include:
 teenage mothers;
 pupils excluded from school;
 school phobics;
 pupils in the assessment phase of a statement.
PRUs’ small size, rapidly changing roll and the type of pupils they teach mean that they are not subject to all the legislative requirements that apply to mainstream and special schools.
A PRU must, however, have an SEN policy and appropriate child protection procedures (see also Education Welfare Service under Access ).
The key differences between PRUs and schools are as follows:
 PRUs are required to have a management committee;
 dual registration of pupils in PRUs and schools;
 staffing and the relative duties of LEAs and teachers in charge;
 the curriculum, which need not be the full National Curriculum;
 premises requirements.
Management committees, for which LEAs have overall responsibility, have a role in the admissions, attendance, discipline, curriculum and post-
Ofsted inspection action of the units. The committee may cover two or more PRUs to ensure better coordination for the education of children out of school.

Management committees are made up of a range of people, e.g. headteachers from mainstream schools, social services, probation, school governors or the youth service.
Full or part-time education can be provided in PRUs in conjunction with an
FE college; and home tuition by an LEA or a mainstream school. Pupils can be dual-registered with mainstream schools. A full national curriculum does not have to be taught in a PRU, although pupils should have as broad a curriculum as possible.
Excluded pupils
The DfES published guidance on exclusion from schools and pupil referral units in 2004; this is available from the Teachernet website. Part 7 of the guidance covers LEA responsibility to provide full time education and reintegration of excluded pupils. (See also Education Welfare Service under Access .)
Admissions and attendance
Pupils should be admitted to a PRU based on clear criteria and each pupil should have targets for re-integration into mainstream or special schooling, further education or employment. Enrolment in a PRU may be suitable for some young people who are not on the register of any school and not receiving suitable education. An LEA may therefore name a PRU in a school attendance order.
Many pupils in PRUs will have special educational needs and a significant number will have statements, usually for emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). LEAs should consider carefully how best to meet the long term needs of those with statements. If a mainstream setting is best, a short term placement within a PRU to tackle immediate problems may aid smooth re-integration into another mainstream school.

For pupils at stages 1-3 of the SEN Code, a period in a PRU might enable that assessment to continue. But if a pupil's long term needs cannot be met in a mainstream school, a special school rather than a PRU should be named on a statement of SEN. Attendance at a PRU is not appropriate for pupils excluded from EBD special schools.
Exclusions from a PRU
Pupils may be excluded from a PRU for a fixed period or permanently on disciplinary grounds. The secretary of state would expect this sanction to be used only in exceptional circumstances, e.g. where a pupil poses a threat to their own safety or wellbeing, or that of other pupils or staff.
Parents of a pupil excluded from a PRU may appeal to the management committee and the LEA. LEAs and management committees may set up arrangements for hearing parents’ views, as in schools. The LEA or the management committee may direct the teacher in charge of the unit to reinstate the pupil.
If a pupil’s behaviour cannot be managed in a unit and results in permanent exclusion, the pupil may well have special educational needs for which a statement is needed. The LEA would then need to arrange a formal assessment of SEN. The LEA’s duty to provide education applies to a pupil excluded from a PRU as to any other pupil out of school.
The behaviour support plan (BSP) is a statement prepared by the LEA detailing the arrangements available, or proposed, in their area for the education of children with behavioural difficulties. The plan was a statutory requirement under the Education Act 1996 , to help ensure that there are coherent, comprehensive and well understood local arrangements for helping schools tackle poor behaviour and discipline

problems. The plans offered an opportunity to identify where aspects of current provision work well and to facilitate the spread of good practice.
The process of producing a plan should result in:
 more effective co-ordination between agencies;
 greater awareness amongst parents and schools of the support available to them for dealing with behaviour problems;
 effective use of the substantial resources available for tackling behaviour problems.
LEAs were required to consult a wide range of local interests in drawing up their plans, including the headteachers and governing bodies of all local maintained schools, representatives of school teaching and support staff, and representatives of local parents.
The DfES has recently rationalised the planning requirements for children’s services. The Children and Young People’s Plan (England)
Regulations 2005, under the Children Act 2004, require local authorities to produce a Children and Young People’s Plan. This is a single, strategic, overarching plan for all local services to children and young people. It replaces the Behaviour Support Plan, as well as the Education
Development Plan, the Early Years Development and Childcare Plan, the
School Organisation Plan, the Class Sizes Plan, the Children’s Services
Plan and the Local Authority Adoption Services Plan.
The first Children and Young People’s Plan had to be published by 1 April
2006. Authorities categorised as ‘excellent’ under CPA are not required to produce a plan.

Guidance on the Education of Children and Young People in Public Care , published jointly by the DfES and the Department of Health, provides direction for local authorities in their role as ‘corporate parent’. It also aims to bring the educational attainment of young people in their care closer into line with that of their peers.
Current policy
Children in public care are at the heart of government initiatives to transform the quality of children's services. Local authorities, in their role as ‘corporate parent’, must be effective champions and ensure that young people gain access to and benefit from opportunities on offer. The guidance sets out the background to current developments and key national objectives and performance.
Section 52 of the Children Act 2004 introduced a duty for local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked after children. Local authorities must therefore consider the educational implications of any decision about the welfare of children in their care. The DfES published statutory guidance on this duty in 2005.
Corporate parenting
It is the duty of the local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child in care. It is essential that the actions and efforts of all those involved are articulated in such a way that corporate parenting translates into ‘good parenting’.
The government’s expectations of the local authority as corporate parent have been set out in the Quality Protects Programme: Transforming
Children’s Services. (For further information, see Children and Families in the Personal Social Services title .)

As part of the national policy context, this guidance is aimed at ensuring that corporate parents will uphold vigorously the entitlement to education of young people in public care, by applying the principles of good parenting. These include:
 prioritising education;
 having high expectations and raising standards;
 promoting inclusion through changing attitudes;
 achieving continuity and stability;
 early intervention and priority action;
 listening to children and young people.
Effective cooperation
Improving educational outcomes for young people in public care depends upon effective multi-agency collaboration. The range of plans local authorities are required to draw up should provide a corporate framework to safeguard the interests of these young people. The guidance recommends, however, that the coordination demanded by corporate parenting requires a skilled senior officer with a clear remit to establish and enforce joint procedures and protocols and provide a permanent resource for all involved in corporate parenting.
The local authority’s commitment to improving the educational experiences and outcomes for young people in public care, and how they intend to achieve it, should be set out in a policy, endorsed by local authority departments and council members. Education should be a central feature of care planning and of the statutory Looked After Children
Review.

Personal education plans (PEPs)
The guidance on the duty to promote educational achievement of looked after children requires local authorities to provide all young people with a personal education plan (PEP) within 14 days of entering care or of joining a new school.
The PEP should be an integral part of the care plan and reflect any existing educational plans such as an individual education plan (IEP) or statement of special educational needs. The PEP should be initiated by the young person’s social worker in partnership with the young person, designated teacher, parent or carer.
Designated teachers
Schools should designate a teacher to act as a resource and advocate for children and young people in public care. LEAs and social services departments (SSDs) should coordinate suitable training for them and maintain an up to date list of designated teachers in schools in their area.
The guidance sets out details of the role expected of designated teachers, their training needs and how they can assist young people in their education.
Like other children, young people in care may at some time in their education have special educational needs (SEN). It should not, however, be assumed that all young people in public care have SEN. Whatever their difficulties, children and young people in care need the support and advocacy of a ‘parent’. Where young people have emotional or behavioural needs, these must be met, but this must not mean that education ceases to be a priority.
At a strategic level, all local authorities should have information about the
SEN of children in their care. The needs of individual young people should be known to the SEN coordinator (SENCO), the designated teacher and their carer and social worker. PEPs should detail individual needs and the

support already provided. Action should be taken according to the SEN
Code of Practice and strictly within the timescales prescribed.
Sure Start
Sure Start is part of the government's drive to eradicate child poverty in
20 years and to halve it in ten. By involving parents and a range of agencies in initiatives to boost young children's development, it aims to give children in disadvantaged areas a much better start in life. Sure Start programmes work with parents-to-be, parents and children to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children, particularly those who are disadvantaged, so that they can flourish at home and when they begin school.
Programmes are led by local partnerships of parents, community groups, local authorities, health agencies, voluntary groups and others, working closely with early years development and childcare partnerships and the
Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative.
Partnerships work in new and more constructive ways to make sure that services in Sure Start areas are focused more closely on the needs of local families and children. Clear improvement targets are set, and programmes operate by consulting and involving local people in development, delivery and management.
Each Sure Start programme is different, as they are designed to meet local needs, but all programmes are likely to include:
 better ante-natal support and advice to parents-to-be, including help to stop smoking;
 visits to all new parents within two months of the birth to introduce them to Sure Start services;

 improved quality of early learning experiences for young children;
 improved quality of childcare;
 more childcare places and a greater variety of provision;
 more accessible baby clinics and advice on health and child development;
 support for parents including parenting groups, advice on healthy eating and training for work.
By 2002, 10,000 full-time equivalent childcare places had been created.
There were 524 Sure Start programmes running in disadvantaged areas by March 2004.
Phase 2 of the programme covers 2006 to 2008, with a target of 2,500
Sure Start children’s centres by March 2008. In the longer term the government aims to have 3,500 centres by March 2010 (one for every community). Planning guidance for local authorities is available from the
Sure Start website.
Home-Start
Home-Start is the UK's leading family support organisation. It provides trained parent volunteers to help any parent with at least one child under five who is finding it hard to cope. Established in 1973, Home-Start now works alongside 31,000 families and 68,000 children each year.
Home-Start is now established in more than 330 communities across the
UK, yet demand is such that a new community based scheme is being established, on average, every fortnight.
Home-Start volunteers provide emotional and practical support and friendship to families in their own homes; in doing so, they represent a lifeline for many families when circumstances are difficult. This support

can be enough to prevent situations getting worse and may help avoid family breakdown or child abuse.
Parents and families come to Home-Start for a variety of reasons. These include:
 ill health
 bereavement
 post-natal illness
 relationship difficulties
 loneliness
 disabilities
 multiple births
 isolation.
The service is free and confidential. For more information, see the Home-
Start website.
Children’s Fund
The government has established the Children’s Fund as a new part of its strategy to tackle child poverty and exclusion. This was announced as part of the Year 2000 Spending Review and was worth £450 million over the first three years, and £411.5 million from 2005/06 to 2007/08. By 2008 the work covered by the Children’s Fund will have been incorporated into children’s trusts.
The Children’s Fund is integral to the government’s commitment to eradicate child poverty within 20 years. The Children’s Fund supports two programmes.

 Preventative work – most of the funding is targeted at providing increased and better co-ordinated preventative services, primarily for children and young people in the 5 to 13 age group, bridging the gap between Sure Start and Connexions. It pays for services such as mentoring programmes, befriending, parenting education and support as well as counselling and advice. The Fund is intended to provide a flexible and responsive approach to meeting needs, identified at a local level, of children and young people at risk of social exclusion;
 Local network – the remaining funding is for a local network of children’s funds. The network of funds is administered by the voluntary sector, for children of all ages, and focuses on helping local and community groups to provide local solutions to the problem of child poverty.
For further information on the above initiatives, see Children and Families in the Personal Social Services title .
For general information on special educational needs, see the DfES centre for special educational needs and the website of the National Association for Special Educational Needs .