What happens when additional support is needed?
Services available in Camden that support children with additional needs in schools and disabilities and in the community.
If your child needs additional help to make progress in school, your child’s teachers will make an individualised plan for support for your child. The school’s special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinator (SENDCo) will help with this. Your child’s progress will be discussed with you on a regular basis. It is a good idea before your child starts or moves to a new school that you tell the school about your child's needs so that the right support is available.
A school may ask for advice from outside specialists about how best to support a child - for example initially this could be from a speech and language therapist or an occupational therapist. Sometimes an educational psychologist or a behaviour specialist would be needed.
If you feel that your child needs additional help, you do have a right to request an assessment although it is best to have the support of any professionals already involved with your child before doing so.
Area SENDCos can help to provide advice, training and support for children within the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and offer specialist programmes for young children not in schools. This team works only with children in children’s centres, private, voluntary and independents nurseries, not school nurseries.
Camden services that provide support:
- The educational psychology service – helps to assess children’s learning needs and helps teachers to understand how to adapt their teaching.
- The primary learning support service – provides assessments and specialist help for children with emotional, social, language, communication and mental health difficulties. The services provides specialist teachers and speech and language therapists to support children with language and communication difficulties, including disorders such as specific language impairment and autism.
- The Camden language and communication service , part of the primary learning support service, works together with schools and families to support children with speech, language and communication needs in primary mainstream schools in Camden.
- For children with physical disabilities the Camden physical disability outreach service supports children in mainstream schools.
- The sensory advisory service – offers specialist advice to schools where a pupil has a hearing and/or a visual impairment and for deaf children & young people.
Schools and early years settings will always communicate with parents if they think additional support is needed for a child or young person and always before they contact other specialists. Some services, such as educational psychology, will need your signed consent or the consent of your child if they are over 16 years.
Schools in Camden are improving the way they explain to parents and carers how they support children with special educational needs and disabilities. All the Camden schools are working on this and will have their school ‘local offer ‘ for children with special educational needs and disabilities on their website. Every SENDCo in Camden schools will be happy to discuss their policy on special educational needs and disability with parents/carers.
There are a number of people who will be able to help you access the Local Offer. SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support Service) will be able to help advise you. Their telephone number is 0207 974 6264.
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