Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
Nottinghamshire provides a wide range of support to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities aged 0 to 25 and their families. This is achieved by working in partnership with parents, carers, children, schools and other agencies such as health, social care and the voluntary sector.
Nottinghamshire SEND improvement programme
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the Nottinghamshire local area to assess how effective the local education, health and care services are at identifying, and meeting the needs of, children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) aged 0 to 25. For more information on the inspection and the report, visit Local area SEND (Ofsted and Care Quality Commission) Inspection Nottinghamshire 2023.
In response to the inspection's findings, the Nottinghamshire local area partnership has developed a SEND Improvement Plan (Priority Action Plan)
Nottinghamshire's SEND local offer
Local authorities provide details of all the services and provision that are available to families of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This is known as the SEND local offer.
The SEND local offer aims to bring together helpful and useful information for children and young people with SEND and their families, regardless of the complexity of need.
The majority of the services and provision will be universally available without the need for any form of assessment or referral. Where an assessment or referral is required, we have asked providers to make this clear.
Nottinghamshire interim SEND strategic action plan 2023 to 2024
The local area partnership is committed to continuous improvement to deliver the best outcomes for children and young people with SEND. This interim SEND Strategic Action (SSAP) reflects our key partnership priorities in addition to the two Priority Actions identified by Ofsted / CQC during their inspection of the Nottinghamshire local area in 2023.
Nottinghamshire SEND place planning strategy 2021-2026
The Nottinghamshire SEND place planning strategy sets out the council's plans to ensure that there is sufficiency of special school placements for children and young people who require a place. The strategy was agreed by Policy Committee in September 2021.
Additional support
If you think that additional support is required to meet the needs of your child, or if, as a young person, you would like some extra help, please use the SEND local offer to identify what is available and find out who you can contact to access this help and support.
It is expected that the majority of needs can be met without the requirement for a statutory assessment or an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. When considering any requests for an EHC plan, evidence will be sought as to how the SEND local offer has been used to support the child/young person’s needs. The aim is for information to be located in one, easily-located website. It can be accessed using smart phones and tablets as well as via the internet.
The council's customer service centre will also be able to provide details of the information contained within the SEND local offer to those without easy access to the internet. The customer service centre can be contacted on 0300 500 8080.
