SEN Personnel

What is a SENCo?

A SENCo is a Special Educational Needs Coordinator, and they are the person tasked to look after any child's special needs within the school. It can be just an administrative role - it doesn't mean that they're the ones actually giving the support. It's down to them to make sure that the support actually happens and they coordinate all the support and everything that your child will need. They're also very important because they're the person that you're most likely to meet with once problems have gone beyond the stage of just being dealt with in the classroom. So if you're particularly looking at school action plus, you're likely to involve the same coordinator who will then try to get the appropriate additional help and support in place.

What is an Educational Psychologist?

An Educational Psychologist is the person who will assess your child's educational needs. They'll do a whole series of tests. If it's decided that the child isn't coping, generally, and needs additional provision of some way, they will assess the child. It'll be quite detailed. They'll look at things like their reading and writing and their maths. They'll also look at things like non-verbal, their spatial ability, a whole range of things. And it, generally, these sort of assessments are quite child-friendly. The child should relax into it. They'll then write a detailed report saying what kind of provision the child needs. If they need to maybe see a speech and language therapist or an educational, have some sort of other educational input, occupational therapy, whatever. But importantly, any Educational Psychologist's report worth its, worth looking at will tell you what the child's strengths are and how these can be worked on to improve the child's learning and sort of minimize their difficulties.

What is a speech and language therapist?

A speech and language therapist works on all aspects of communication and speech. The very severe end, because they have good knowledge of oral anatomy, they may be involved with children who have problems with eating and swallowing and helping with working out how to work around those problems. The most common types of speech therapy you come across tend to be where, working perhaps with young children, they're have difficulty pronouncing certain words. So they may say "caff" instead of "cat", or "Edwar" instead of "Edward." So they would work on getting specific sounds, perhaps the "spp" and the "rruh."But with the special schools, they are working more on using language as a communication. It could be that children don't understand the meaning of words, or importantly, think of the children with autism, they don't understand language as a communication, they can't read facial expressions, they don't understand when it's 'raining cats and dogs' that there is not literally a down-pouring of cats and dogs. And they will work, often with groups of children, not necessarily one-to-one, to solve these problems or to work out alternative strategies to help the child cope.

What is an Occupational Therapist (OT)?

An Occupational Therapist is somebody who works with a child to help them overcome difficulties that they may have with gross, usually gross, and fine motor skills. If a child has difficulty catching a ball or kicking a ball, that's basically the gross motor skills. The fine motor skills are handwriting and drawing. They will use strategies to help them overcome those difficulties. They'll work on things like poor muscle tone, reflexes, where there's involuntary reflexes. Often with children, for example, with dysphasia, to every action made, there's an equal and opposite reaction, and they'll work on trying to rectify those, rewire the brain, find alternative routes to those parts that aren't quite receiving the messages as they should.

What is Physiotherapy?

Physiotherapy can help children who have poor muscle tone problems with poor stability or coordination. They may have physical problems that prevent them from functioning in a way in which they would wish, and it tends to be very goal-driven, so it's very much perhaps about getting a good posture. In that way, it differs to occupational therapy where occupational therapists would be working on similar things but trying to make sure they can relate to the tasks that an individual needs to carry out in everyday life.

What is an Orthoptist?

An Orthoptist is a person who checks how the eyes are actually working as opposed to how far we can see. If a child has a problem tracking when they're reading, they can correct tracking difficulties. They will be able to provide colored overlays, eventually colored lenses for children who are dyslexic. They look at all those different types of vision. If a child has a squint, if they need an eye patch in order to bring what we call the glue or the fusion of the eyes together, they will work with that. They're very tied in with children who have special educational needs. It's all the other visual problems beyond how far we can actually see something.

What are counsellors and how can they help children with SEN?

Counselors help children to overcome problems. It doesn't mean that they will solve the problems. It's really about facing up and looking to the way forward. It's not that they're going to wave a magic wand and make all the problems go away. A good outcome might be that a child who is dyslexic and has lots of problems will, by the end of the session, think of themselves as only dyslexic, and that will become a very small part. It's helping to put everything into perspective and to find ways to move forward from the problems or difficulties that are hindering the child.

What is a music therapist?

A music therapist isn't somebody who teaches a child how to play a musical instrument. They use music for communication. Children can respond to rhythms. They may find that listening to music is very relaxing. They may find that actually playing the instruments - banging out on a drum, for example - can help them express emotions and feelings.

What are teaching assistants and learning support assistants?

There used to be a difference between the two, but there isn't really any more. Teaching assistants or learning support assistants will support learners. It may be that they're assigned to an individual child, perhaps a child with special education needs, who needs extra support. They shouldn't be a crutch, they shouldn't be velcroed to the child. They should be helping the child gain independence and eventually do themselves out of a job. They may help in other ways, it may be that they work with small groups of children. They should never be left in the classroom with a whole class - that's not what a teaching assistant is for. They may be used to differentiate materials, or to put up displays. Frequently they get to have a very in depth knowledge of a particular child that they're working with and become quite an expert in that field, but the key to remember is the most important person is still the teacher. If you're a parent, that's who you should be dealing with.

What is an SEN Governor?

Special Educational Needs Governor has an overview of what's happening in special needs in the school. It doesn't mean that they are an expert in special needs. In fact, they seldom are. But what they do do, is they'll meet regularly with the special educational needs coordinator, they'll write a report on special educational needs, which is presented to the Governors to make sure the school is fulfilling all that it should be doing under the SEN code of practice. They are also a person which you may want to contact if you are having problems with the school. But remember that the Governors work very much with the Heads and the schools, so they are not necessarily going to take your side against the schools.