SENCo's Resource Page

Advice page content

This resource page links to useful national websites that provide specialist advice on various aspects of SEND. Please have a look and use some of the advice and resources that these organisations have thoughtfully put together to help embed inclusion and promote the well-being and rights of children and young people with additional needs.

The enhanced rights for disabled children were developed to address inequalities. The resources on this page help illustrate this and can be used to explain it to others.

Since the changes brought about by the SEND reforms, all local authorities have a duty to share relevant SEND information in one place. In Hackney, this is here on Hackney's Local Offer website.

SEND services are under constant change having to adapt to a complex landscape. We aim to have the most relevant and up-to-date information available for you here on Hackney's Local Offer website.

The website is under continuing development. We are listening to the feedback from a range of stakeholders and making improvements to content and navigation. For example, key guidance, templates, forms, and planning tools are shared in the documents library instead of across related articles. The Documents Library is available from the top of every page on the website.

Parents and carers can also access and make use of the information across the website. There is also a dedicated Parent-carer resource page

The Local Offer coordinator will try to help with specific inquiries if you cannot find what you are looking for. Get in touch using the 'Contact Us' button available at the top of every page of this website.


The role of the SENCo

The role of the SENCo requires a skilled person who receives the support they need to be effective. Experienced and effective SENCos take a person-centred approach. Partnership work with young people, parent-carers and other service providers is key to success. Sharing appropriate information about the holistic and academic wellbeing of pupils or students with SEND.

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 explains the central role of the school SENCo in making sure every learner feels included. This offers the best opportunity for each child to reach their full potential.

School SENCos, headteachers, governing bodies each have important roles in strategic development of the settings SEN policy. And of the development and delivery of additional support. Every leader is a leader of children and young people with SEND. Every teacher is a teacher of learners with SEND.

A SENCo may not be a member of the Leadership Team, but the SEND Code of Practice implies that they should. "(A SENCo) will be most effective in that role if they are part of the school leadership team.’

A SENCo holds the responsibility for day-to-day operation of what has been agreed in the SEN policy. They should lead on supporting and arranging training for colleagues. This helps develop skills and knowledge about inclusive practice across the whole school.

SENCos should continue work on their own professional development. Since September 2009 it is the law that every new SENCO in a mainstream school must gain the Master’s-level National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator within 3 years of taking up the post.

Statutory SEND Legislation

This legislation sets out statutory legal duties in relation to SEND. These duties have implications for you in your role as SENCos.

You will need to frequently check and reference the legislation becoming familiar enough with it to make sure you and others in the school understand and are confidently interpreting the intentions behind the law.

The guidance relating to specific legislation e.g. the SEND Code of Practice is intended to help develop and apply and check your understanding of the legal requirements. 


Further Guidance 

Shorter sector-specific versions of the above guidance are also available but no replacement for the full versions that they are based on. 

Education

Health 


Social Care 

The School SEND Register and Provision Mapping...

Part of your role as SENCo is to ensure that you track the progress of learners with SEND and report on the learners’ progress to parents and other stakeholders.

Provision maps for individuals are an efficient way of showing all the provisions that the school makes which are “additional to and different from” that which is offered through the school’s curriculum.

Provision maps should clearly indicate the level of support each child with SEND is receiving and document the impact of this support.

The use of wider school provision maps can help SENCos maintain an overview of the programmes and interventions used with different groups of pupils and provide a basis for monitoring the levels of intervention.
Cop . 6.76

The Provision Map should cover who is on the SEND register and all interventions that each of these students receives. It should take into consideration the funding allocated to each student and accurately work out the cost spent on each student.

Hackney commissioned independent training for settings and the Provision Mapping guidance and templates shared during the training are available in the Documents Library here (PDF).

Safeguarding Children and Young People

Worried about a child or a young person? 

If you think a child is at risk of immediate harm, please contact the police by calling 999

If a child is not in immediate danger but you have concerns you can find useful guidance here. 

Hackney Education Child Protection advice and service contact details. 


Hackney MASH (Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub) Children's and Families Service

If you are worried about a child or young person contact Hackney MASH (Mullti-Agency Safeguarding Hub). 

MASH has a consultation helpline where you can discuss possible referrals with a social worker to help you think about the best approach and next steps to getting the right support. 

Phone 0208 356 5500 (9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday)

email MASH@hackney.gov.uk


Hackney and City of London Children & Families Team

Phone 0207 332 3621

email children.duty@cityoflondon.gov.uk


Emergency Duty Team

Out of hours contact the Emergency Duty Team (5pm to 9am and weekends)

Phone 0208 356 2710

email emergency.duty@hackney.gov.uk 


Safeguarding in Education Team 

Phone 020 8820 7325

Web Hackney Safeguarding in Education 


City of London & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership

City of London & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership provides training for those working with children and vulnerable people. For all inquiries relating to training, please contact the Training Coordinator at chscp@hackney.gov.uk

Phone 0208 3564183 

Students with SEND and School Exclusions

Being excluded from school even for a short time (a fixed term exclusion) can be very distressing for a child or young person and for their parents or carers.

Certain procedures must be followed when a child or young person is excluded from a school or education setting.

Some of these procedures relate directly to pupils and students who have or may have special educational needs and or disabilities (SEND). Pupils with SEND are overrepresented in the statistics on school exclusions. 

It is important for schools and parents to understand the laws around school exclusions and that exclusions must not be given to a child for behaviour related to or arising from having a disability as this is discrimination. 

Hackney Education is working with local schools to reduce school exclusions and offers a range of school support services and alternatives to exclusions. 

Primary Exclusion Officer
Phone 020 8820 7054

Secondary Exclusion Officer
Phone 020 8820 7569
Email exclusions.education@hackney.gov.uk


Help and Advice for parents and carers

A help and advice school exclusions article is available for parents of children with additional needs at risk of or experiencing a school exclusion. 

Parents of children with SEND and young people themselves should also be directed to Hackney SENDIAGS if they need support and information about their rights and options.  

Phone 020 7275 6036 (Advice Line)

Web www.hackneysendiags.co.uk

Three key statutory documents that schools must make available.

These are 3 key documents that must be published by schools to specifically explain how pupils or students with SEND are planned for and supported in each setting. 

These must be easy to find on the school’s own website and available on request if a parent-carer needs a copy.


School SEN Information Reports 

SENCos are often responsible for their setting's SEN Information Report. These are parent-friendly documents that use easy-to-understand language to explain how the school supports children and young people with SEND. The report should include how the school identifies and supports those with additional needs and information on the interventions used to support young people to achieve identified goals.  

Note: In 2014, when the SEND reforms were first implemented, SEN Information Reports were sometimes referred to as a School's Local Offer. This is no longer the case and they MUST all be named SEN Information Report. 

For more information read the SEND Code of Practice - Publishing information: SEN information report - Chapter 6 paragraph 6.79

All SEN Information Reports MUST include a link to the borough's SEND Local Offer website and contact details for the free impartial SEND Information, Advice, and Support (IAS) service. 

You are very welcome to use the following links and descriptions for context in your reports to ensure you are being helpful and compliant. 

Hackney's SEND Local Offer website

You can find information on local services and support for children and young people 0-25 with SEND and their families on Hackney's SEND Local Offer website. 

Web www.hackneylocaloffer.co.uk

If you can’t find the information you are looking for you can contact the website coordinator who will try to help you find it or put you in touch with a service that can discuss what you need in more detail. 

Email  localoffer@hackney.gov.uk


Hackney SEND Information, Advice, Guidance and Support (SENDIAGS)  

Free specialist information advice and support service for parents and carers of children and young people with SEND. Impartial, confidential, and arm's length from other services. 

Hackney SENDIAGS. 
Ann Tayler Children’s Centre
1-13 Triangle Road off Westgate Street
Hackney
E8 3RP

Phone 020 7275 6036 (Advice Line)

Web www.hackneysendiags.co.uk


School  SEN Policy 

The law says all schools must have policies that say what the school plans to do in certain situations. They include information about the laws and rules that shape the day-to-day processes of the school.

The SEN policy will be one of the policies a school will have. It will contain technical information and details based on a shared understanding of the school's mission, values, vision, and aims. 

A policy should include:

  • A short statement referring to relevant national regulations and local guidelines 
  • A list of groups, individuals, and documents consulted when making the policy. 
  • Cross-references to other documents and links to other policies where this is helpful
  • Roles and responsibilities of staff involved 
  • Monitoring and evaluation arrangements – the evidence used to show progress has been achieved.
  • Date the policy was established by the governing body and a date for review.
  • Signature of Chair of Governors or Chair of Committee 

School Accessibility Policy

The purpose of a School Accessibility Plan is to show how your setting plans to increase accessibility over time.  This planning should eventually ensure pupils or students with a disability can equally benefit from the education, facilities, and services provided to all children and young people and are enabled to fully take part in the school community. 

It should include information about how the school is planning to: 

  • Increase access for disabled pupils to the school curriculum
  • Improve access to the physical environment of the school
  • Improve the availability of accessible information to disabled pupils.
  •  Schools need to regularly review their accessibility plans take the identified actions and plan progressively for future actions 

The headteacher, Senior Leadership Team and finance committee will review financial implications as part of their budget review process.

Key Definitions of SEND...

Definition of Disability

Introduction XVii - SEND Code of Practice 2015

“Disabled children and young people xviii. Many children and young people who have SEN may have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 – that is ‘…a physical or mental impairment which has a long-term and substantial adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’.


This definition provides a relatively low threshold and includes more children than many realise: ‘long-term’ is defined as ‘a year or more’ and ‘substantial’ is defined as ‘more than minor or trivial’. This definition includes sensory impairments such as those affecting sight or hearing, and long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, and cancer.


Children and young people with such conditions do not necessarily have SEN, but there is a significant overlap between disabled children and young people and those with SEN. Where a disabled child or young person requires special educational provision they will also be covered by the SEN definition.”


The Children and Families Act (2014) states that a child or young person has:

Special educational needs – if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them (Section 20).

AND

Special educational provision – is provision that is additional to or different from that which would normally be provided for children or young people of the same age in a mainstream education setting (Section 21).


SEND Acronyms

Acronyms in SEND can be as confusing for those working in services as they are for parents, carers and children and young people. Use of terminology and acronyms can mean the people the discussion is about cannot understand and participate fully in it.

Sometimes parents can feel pressured to adopt this way of communicating but at all times the young person should be able to understand what is being discussed if it relates to their needs, support and future.

Try to avoid using acronyms in communications and during meetings with parents and carers and young people or clearly and helpfully explain them up front and ask if it is ok to use the shortened phrase. You can also ask what language the young person and family use to describe their difficulties. Some people prefer using the term Asperger's or autistic. 

Some acronyms are hard to avoid for example SEND is widely used instead of Special Educational Needs and/or Disability and is a phrase parents quickly understand and adopt. The term SENCo may need an explanation on occassion. 

Young people in Hackney have told us they prefer the use of the phrase "additional needs" to "special needs". 

The following two resources are helpful in expalining acronyms

FREE Training and support for Hackney SENCos....

SENCo Induction, Forum and Conference

Hackney’s local SENCo Forum is run by Ed Chilton, a Senior Educational Psychologist for Hackney and Rhiannon Eglin, a Specialist Teaher for Hackney.

This forum is free for all Hackney SENCos and Inclusion Leads. The forum meets every half term, and will follow a specific topic or focus which will be based on consultations with Hackney’s SENCos.

SENCos will meet once a term in their neighbourhood locations as detailed below, and once a term with all the SENCos and Inclusion leads across Hackney.

These sessions offer an opportunity to meet, network and exchange ideas with other SENCOs in the borough and form supportive contacts to help you in your role.


Neighbourhood Groupings for SENCO Forums:

  • North Area 1 Springfield Park and Hackney Downs
  • North Area 2 Woodberry Wetlands and Clissold Park
  • South Area 1 Hackney Marshes and Well Street Common
  • South Area 2 London Fields and Shoreditch


The forum is a way of meeting other SENCos and Professionals working within Hackney Services and a great way of finding out what is happening in Hackney for those with and working in SEND.


Find Hackney's SENCo Forum Guidance 2021 to 2022 summary and tips here.



SENCO Forum dates for 2022 to 2023:

  • Neighbourhood Forums September 21, 22, 28, 29
  • SENCo Induction October 19
  • Secondary & Post 16 Forum November 10
  • Full SENCo Forum December 7
  • Neighbourhood Forums January 18, 19, 25, 26,
  • Full SENCo Forum March 9
  • Primary SENCo Forums March 10, 11
  • Secondary & Post 16 Forum March 17
  • Year 6 transition to Year 7 Information Handover event June 6
  • Full SENCo Forum July 13


If you have questions or want to find out more about the SENCo Forum contact
Rhiannon Eglin by email on rhiannon.eglin@hackney.gov.uk


National SENCO Forum from Whole School SEND

In addition to the local SENCo forum session there is a National SENCo Forum which it is advisable to sign up to.
Membership of the national forums and organisation enables you to take part in national research that feeds into projects such as Effective SENCo Deployment - A guide for the SENCOs and their line managers.


 SENCo Induction

The annual SENCo Induction course is for anyone who is a new SENCo in Hackney or those working in the field who wish to refresh their local knowledge of services.
A wide range of relevant services attend to explain what they offer and answer any of your questions. The 2022 SENCo Induction session is on the 19th October 9am to 3pm  at The Tomlinson Centre on Queensbridge Road. 


Annual Inclusion conference

The annual Inclusion conference hosts speakers who are considered national experts in their field. A range of high quality workshops facilitated by a mix of national experts and local service leads are on offer over a full day with lunch and networking opportunities included. This conference is for both SENCos and Senior Leaders in schools.


Training Courses for people working in education

Hackney offers a range of training in areas of Special Educational Needs. You can view the training options or book on to courses on the Services for Schools website.


SEND Governor training

It is good practice for schools to have a SEND link Governor.
It is important to arrange a meeting with them in your first term as SENCo.
Governors have an annual training programme with opportunities to find out about a range of topics related to their role including their duties as a governing body to pupils with SEND and reducing inequalities that may exist within education.
View training options and book onto courses here via Hackney’s Services for Schools website. 

Exam Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments...

Access Arrangements are pre-examination adjustments for candidates based on evidence of need and normal ways of working.

Access Arrangements fall into two distinct categories: some arrangements are delegated to schools, colleges and centres. Others require approval from JCQ (Joint Qualifications Council).

Access Arrangements formally allow learners with special educational needs, disabilities or temporary injuries to access assessments (test or exams) without the assessment being changed. For example:

  • extra time
  • prompts
  • readers
  • scribes (someone who writes what the student gives as the answer)
  • braille question papers

This is the way Awarding Bodies comply with the duty of the Equality Act 2010 to make 'reasonable adjustments'.


Reasonable Adjustments

The Equality Act 2010 requires an Awarding Body to make reasonable adjustments where a disabled person would be at a substantial disadvantage in undertaking an assessment.

A reasonable adjustment for a particular person may be unique to that individual and may not be included in the list of available Access Arrangements.


Autistic students and access arrangement 

Autistic students may face additional challenges when taking exams, such as sensory overload. Having recognised these challenges, the DfE commissioned the Autism Education Trust to develop guidance around accommodations to help teachers and exam officers support autistic students to be able to fully demonstrate their knowledge and skills when taking qualifications. The guide includes tips on "The availability of access arrangements". 

Preparing a student who is autistic for exams. 

In order to prepare autistic students for taking exams, teachers should be familiar with the exam content and formatting so that they can provide individualised guidance and support.  It is good practice to make use of any available previous papers and practice material. 

The guide was written specifically to support autistic students being entered for GCSEs, but the principles and good practice examples can be applied to all public examinations.

Find out more: Autism Education Trust - Exam accomodations guidance to support students with autism at GCSE


For full information and guidance about about Access Arrangements look on on The Joint Council for Qualifications (JQC) website.


Some SENCos are qualified to assess students for access arrangements but specialist input can also be commissioned from Hackney Education's Inclusion and Specialist Support Team and Educational Psychology Service

Supporting children with SEND

How parents and schools can support children with SEND?

The 2014 SEN Code of Practice sets out how schools, parents and carers must work together to help children with special educational needs.

Parents can expect schools to:

  • answer questions about their child’s progress
  • show them the school’s SEND policy, SEN information report and School's Accessibility policy
  • explain how the school’s policy affects thir child
  • invite parents to all meetings to discuss your child’s progress and education plan
  • give you a chance to submit information for consideration
  • allow you to see copies of reports before your child’s statement/EHC Plan is reviewed.

Schools will expect parents to:

  • share any information which helps to plan your child’s education
  • attend meetings to discuss your child’s progress
  • make sure your child attends school regularly
  • support your child’s learning through activities at home

If parents still have concerns...

If parents still have concerns about the support their child is getting that can talk to:

  • their class teacher
  • the school's special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO)

Parents and young people can also get advice from Hackney SENDIAGS (SEND Information, Advice and Guidance Service)


Statutory Assessments

Parents and young people themselves have the right to ask Hackney Learning Trust to consider an assessment of their or their child’s needs.

If a parent or young person feels a needs assessment may be necessary thay are encouraged to talk to the school first. 


Personal budgets

Since September 2014 Statements of Special Educational Needs are being replaced with joined up Educational Health and Care (EHC) Plans.

By law all children and young people in receipt of an Education, Health and Care Plan are able to request a personal budget.

A personal budget is an amount of money that you can use to arrange and pay for your support agreed in your EHC Plan. The amount that you get depends on the needs and outcomes identified in your plan and can alter as they change.


Disagreement resolution

If a parent or young person is not happy with the support they are getting in school they should first speak to the:

  • class teacher
  • special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO)
  • the Headteacher/Principal

Getting advice

You can also get advice from Hackney SENDIAGS who have an informal disagreement resolution service to help parents and Hackney Education SEND services reach an agreement.

Medition

The Independent SEND Mediation provider in Hackney is Global Mediation Services. 


Making an appeal

If a parent disagrees with a decision about their child's special educational needs, they can appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal.

Please see: What is a tribunal?

Requesting an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment

For those who are making a request for an Education Health and Care Needs Assessment on behalf of a child or young person Hackney Education has produced some guidance which is available in the documents library section of this website

Professional and parental request forms are available and differentiated.

Evidence to support the need for an assessment is required. 

EHC Planning documents, forms and templates

Hackney Education SEND services have co-produced some useful guidance, forms and templates for SENCO’s. 

Documents available from the Documents Library include: 

  • Hackney EHC Plan template 0-13 
  • Hackney EHC Plan  template 14-19+ Preparing for Adulthood 
  • New Requests-Professionals Form
  • Person centred annual reviews and transfer reviews
  • Person centred reviews agenda
  • Person centred annual review and transfer reviews guidance
  • Annual review/transfer review form 0-13
  • Annual review/transfer review form 14-25
  • Children and young peoples ‘All about me’
  • Parent/carer views
  • Education staff views

Hackney's Education, Health and Care Planning Team are also able to provide advice relating to applications and EHC plans.

Section 19 principles - supporting and involving children and young people

Section 19 principles on supporting and involving children and young people are central to the Children's and Families Act. 

Hackney’s SEND Services believe that pupil voice is very important. In order to understand someone’s needs and how best to support them, you need to be able to listen to what they say. 

Most schools will have a schools council -  some members of some school’s councils will represent young people on Hackney Youth  Parliament. This opportunity means young people can affect local decision making.  Local decision makers are keen to hear from young people and would like more representation from those with SEND. 

  • Does your school have disabled pupils represented on the school’s council? 

  • How are they supported to represent the views and wishes of other disabled children in your school? 

  • How is their feedback escalated for action? 


Forums and engagement groups for children and young people

Many service are organised around the views and wishes of the young people who attend them. 

The following groups are some of the SEND specific forums in Hackney that have been set up for young people to be able to get involved in decisions that affect them. The groups help support services and settings to understand how they can become more inclusive. They also offer an important platform for meeting and socialising with other young people who have had similar experiences. 

  • Children’s Disability Forum (contact Huddleston Centre)

  • Hackney Captains (contact Hackney Ark Occupational Therapy) 

  • Education Youth Inclusion Team (contact Rhiannon through the Inclusion and Specialist Support Team) 

  • Year 7 Autism Forum (contact Lydia through the Inclusion and Specialist Support Team) 


Children and young people - The right to have a voice

The benefits to a child or young person of expressing their views are:

• it develops a child’s positive sense of self and provides an opportunity to articulate and develop their own identity

• is supportive of the child/young person’s ability to see themselves as a problem solver with agency and power over their own life

• offers opportunity to be a curious, creative and reflective thinker

• encourages the development of social competences and the forging of new relationships

• develops an inquiring reflexive mind

• is supportive of independence.

Source: Cheminais, 2006; Noyes, 2005; Goepel, et al. 2015


Listening to the viewpoints of children or young people with SEND encourages others to see the person as a unique individual with knowledge and understanding about their own life and valuable things to say.


Family Engagement - Parents and carers

Listening to the child’s or young person’s voice Children and young people with SEND should feel confident they will be listened to and have their views valued. There is, however, a balance to be struck between seeking the voice of the child and overburdening them with decision making procedures. Parents and carers may often represent the views of the child. It is important that children and young people are involved in decision-making about their learning, additional provision, extended services, and lives in general because if they are not, they will only receive what others think they want.


Effective partnership working is essential to ensure children and young people with SEND and their families have their views heard and receive the support they need.


A family centred approach for learners of all ages places the child or young person and the family at the heart of the SEND process. It relies on parents/carers and children/ young people with SEND being actively involved in the decisions that affect them. Their engagement should be at both a personal and strategic level.

  • Acknowledge the positive 

  • Recognise the difficulty 

It is helpful to raise awareness with parents of the various support groups and charities that can help them. This can empower families and relive the demands on a SENCo time. 

Each local authority has a Parent Carer Forum funded by the Department for Education and overseen by a National Network of Parent Carer Forums and Contact. The benefit of a local forum is that parents are able to network with other parents of children and young people with SEND. 

 


Structured conversations

A structured conversation is an approach that allows for genuine but structured conversations that use different strategic steps. The process is designed to:

  • Explore – during this phase of the conversation the aim is to gain a clear understanding of the parents’/carers’ perspectives. The listener is encouraged to actively listen and check their understanding is accurate through the use of paraphrasing.
  • Focus – during this phase of the conversation the aim is to work collaboratively with the parents/carers to identify priorities and clarify the key issues.
  • Plan – during this phase of the conversation the aim is to agree targets, define the desired outcomes and develop an action plan.
  • Review – during this phase of the conversation the aim is to summarise the meeting and clarify the next steps and further communications.


The approach was designed as part of the National Strategies’ Achievement for All 2009 project.

Person Centred Planning

Hackney encourages all reviews to be person centred. This is a key way to ensure the voice of the child or young person is kept at the canter of any planning.

Person-Centred Planning should:

• focus on the child or young person as an individual

• enable children and young people and their parent-carers to express their views, wishes and feelings

• enable children and young people and their parents to be part of the decision-making process

• use clear ordinary language and images rather than professional jargon

• highlight the child or young person’s strengths and capabilities

• enable the child or young person and those that know them best to say what they are interested in and what outcomes they are seeking in the future

• tailor support to the needs of the individual

• organise assessments in a way that reduces demands on families

• bring relevant professionals together to discuss and agree the overall approach

• deliver an outcomes-focused co-ordinated plan for the child or young person and their parents.

Note: Person-centred practice applies to all children and young people with SEN just children and young people with EHC Plans.

The documents library lists templates and guidance on person centred planning.

This article helps explain the person centred planning to children and young people, parents and carers.

Outcomes - thinking, agreeing and describing the steps needed to reach them

What do children and young people and their parents see as the key outcomes to be working towards?

Outcomes can be defined as the changes we can see being made to an individual, based on something done to create that change and not only related to academic achievement or progress.

The SEND Code of Practice 2015 makes it clear that all children should be empowered to achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes.

Providing real and meaningful engagement of children and young people and their parents is key. This can be achieved through person-centred working taking a partnership approach with the help of everyone involved in a child’s education to identify and agree what positive outcomes to focus on.

Good outcomes are created by building on something that is working well and changing what doesn’t work well, addressing the needs of that person in order to focus on and make progress towards achieving their future aspirations.

Outcome that do not address fundamental aspects of a young person’s future are not ideal outcomes to focus on.

Often you will see outcomes that describe the solution as part of the outcome itself, or that describe the provision that will help the outcome to be achieved.

  • Don’t embed the solution or provision into the outcome.
  • Do look for something that is specific to the individual and measurable, as well as personal to them.

Outcomes should be specific enough to be able to measure whether they have been successfully achieved. For example “to improve my independence”, as an outcome statement, is not specific to the individual and there is no way of measuring if it has been achieved.

Where longer term outcomes are identified they should include a description of the smaller steps needed to reach them. This short video explains how to think about setting outcomes. 

SEND services for children and young people in Hackney...

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities services available to nurseries, school’s and other education or training settings...

Hackney Education provides a wide range of services for schools and other settings to help them support pupils with additional needs and disabilities. These range from training for individuals and school staff to bespoke packages for specific children.

Support and development SEND services for schools have some free access to help support parents and schools to support children with SEND. They can be accessed by parents through drop in sessions if available or by schools through a core offer.

SEND Services for schools and settings in Hackney

Find out more about SEND services for schools and setting via the link to each service's information under the "Related Services" heading to the left of this page on desk or laptop devices and below this article on mobile devices.

Services entries give a brief service overview and include contact and referral details. 

There are some key services that SENCos will refer to more frequently. There will be opportunities to meet teams at induction sessions and networking events. 

These services will all be good supportive contacts for you and you need their telephone numbers.

You can save their service contact details by making an account on this website and saving the entries to you shortlist.

This helps you as if their information is updated your shortlist will be automatically updated as well.


If you are aware of any changes to yours or other services that means the information on the website is incorrect please report it to us so we can follow up and ensure the best and most accurate information is available for everyone.

If you cannot find what you are looking for on this list please contact the Local Offer coordinator who will try to help you find it.

The Local Offer duty, website and coodinator

The Local Offer is one of the key aspects of the SEND reforms…

  • Families and young people at the heart of the process
  • Education Health and Care working together
  • 0-25 provision where appropriate (not just from education)
  • Personal Budgets – offering choice and control
  • Local Offer – relevant information in one place

The 2 key purposes of a shared Local Offer duty…

  • To provide clear, comprehensive, accessible and up-to-date information about the available provision and how to access it.
  • To make provision more responsive to local needs and aspirations by directly involving disabled children and those with SEN and their parents, and disabled young people and those with SEN, and service providers in its development and review

SEND Code of Practice Chapter 4 


What do we mean when we say local offer?

Local Offers are the provision available (on offer) locally to support those with SEND aged 0-25.

  • Education – Early Years, Primary, Secondary, Alternative Provision, Post 16 and where appropriate post 19. This includes training providers e.g. supported internships.
  • Health – Universal / Targeted / Specialist
  • Social Care services (children and adults)
  • Leisure services
  • Others services or organisations who have an appropriate inclusive or enhanced offer available to families in Hackney.
  • Where appropriate charities, community, voluntary and private sector services may also be included.

The Local Offer website..

Our Local Offer website is where local services share their information, processes and activity. Appropriate regional or national service available to families living in Hackney can be included. The continuous process of developing a Local Offer is intended to help identify gaps in provision. 


Contact Hackney's Local Offer Coordinator if you need help finding information about a service or process on the website. 

localoffer@hackney.gov.uk

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Page last modified: 10/10/2023