What is a statement?

A statement will describe all your child’s SEN and the special help your child should receive. We will usually make a statement if we decide that all the special help your child needs cannot be provided from within the school’s resources. These resources could include money, staff time and special equipment.

A statement of SEN is set out in six parts.

Part I

Gives your own and your child’s name and address, and your child’s date of birth, home language and religion. It also lists all the advice the we received as part of the assessment.

Part II

Gives details of all of your child’s SEN as identified in the statutory assessment.

Part III

Describes:

  • all the special help that we think your child should get to meet the needs listed in part II

  • what the long-term aims are

  • the arrangements for setting short-term goals, regularly reviewing your child's progress towards those goals, and

  • how your child’s progress is to be monitored.

Part IV

Tells you about the school your child will go to to get the special help set out in part III, or how any arrangements will be made out of school hours or off school premises.

Part V

Describes any non-educational needs your child has, as agreed between us, the health services, social services or other agencies.

Part VI

Describes how your child will get help to meet the non educational needs described in part V.

We must send, with the statement, copies of all the advice we got from you and from other people and organisations during the statutory assessment.

How long does a statement last?

Your child could have a statement for their whole school career, or for just a part of it. Through the annual reviews of your child’s statement, we may decide that your child can continue to make good progress with the extra help that an ordinary school can provide. If we do, we can stop your child’s statement.

If we want to stop your child’s statement, we will write and tell you, giving their reasons. If you disagree, you should tell us. If the we then stop the statement and you still disagree, you can ask for the disagreement to be sorted out informally and, at the same time, you have a right to appeal to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal.

We will stop the statement if your child leaves school after year 11. If your child stays at school, we can keep the statement until they are 19 or till the end of the school year, to make sure they finish a course.

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