SEND support and funding for education providers

SEND support services for education providers

To make sure that children and young people with SEND get all the help they need through SEN support, education providers may work with other SEND support services.

This additional help is arranged by education providers.

Parents and carers cannot contact these SEND support services directly. If a parent or carer feels their child needs additional help, they can speak to:

their school’s SENCO
local SEND support services to ask for professional advice

Education providers will look at the outcomes of the SEN support graduated approach to decide if a child needs extra support.

If they think additional support is needed, education providers can speak to services linked to the council and the Integrated Care Board to arrange this.

These services include:

specialist teachers
educational psychologists
speech and language therapists
pupil referral units

The SEND support services education providers can access cover in these areas:

hearing loss
sight loss
multisensory impairment
communication and interaction difficulties
medical needs
cognition and learning needs
social, emotional and mental health needs
physical skills

For more details on how a child’s needs are assessed, read this graduated approach page for teachers on SchoolsWeb.

Funding for education providers

The council and Education and Skills Funding Agency give education providers money for each pupil.

The money an education provider gets depends on the number of pupils it has. This is called the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU).

Some of this money is used to help pupils with SEND, and to provide SEN support.

Extra funds are also available to schools to help pupils with SEND.

Parents, carers and young people with SEND cannot apply for these additional funds. Only education providers can apply for extra funding.

But parents, carers and young people with SEND can speak to their education provider and ask them to apply for the funding. An education provider's SENCO is the best person to talk to.

Schools get extra funding to help children and young people with SEND. The money they get depends on the number of children in the school who:

get free school meals
are not doing well in English and maths

A school can choose to spend additional support funding however it chooses, based on the needs of its pupils.

The government says schools should provide £6,000 of support for each pupil with SEND every year.

But this does not mean that schools will spend £6,000 on each pupil with SEND, and sometimes funds will be used to help groups of children.

If a school feels that it needs more than £6,000 to help a pupil with SEND, it can ask the council to give it extra money from High Needs Block Funding.

The council will decide if top up funding is needed, and award funds based on the needs of the pupil.

High Needs Block Funding is for education providers to help children and young people with complex needs.

A group of local school and council professionals decide if a child or young person's needs meet the criteria for High Needs Block Funding at our iSEND Surgery.

If a child qualifies for High Needs Block Funding, payments will be made to their school each term. The funding is set for allocated time periods.

SEND support and funding for education providers

SEND support services for education providers

Funding for education providers

SEND education funding

SEND and top up funding

High Needs Block Funding

Special schools