Special educational needs and disability (SEND)

Overview

A child or young person has a special educational need (SEN) if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which requires special education provision. This is defined as when a child or young person has significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of their peers of the same age. It also includes disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for their peers of the same age in schools maintained by the county council.

As part of a range of SEND (special educational needs and disability) reforms, education, health and care (EHC) plans were introduced in September 2014. EHC plans aim to improve outcomes for children and young people by providing a more joined up approach across different agencies and encouraging parents/carers and young people to be fully involved in decisions around their own support requirements. These replace the old statements of special needs. 

Key findings for Lancashire-12

• In total 17.1% of pupils in schools in Lancashire (including independent schools) have SEN provision in the form of SEN support or an EHCP
• The percentage of children with EHC plans in Lancashire schools is 4.9%, 9,245 pupils, (England 4.8%) as of January 2024.
• 12.2% of school pupils (22,918) have SEN support (England 13.6%).
• Over 1 in 5 children with Special Educational Needs have a primary need of Speech Language and Communication needs, slightly under 1 in 5 have a Social, Emotional and Mental Health need – These pupils account for 3.7% and 3.2% of the full school population respectively. These categories of need have made up an increasingly large proportion of the SEN population since 2018/19, the proportion of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders has also increased.

Education Health and Care Plans

• 11,258 children and young people aged 0-25 years have an EHC plan in January 2024, the number of EHCPs has been increasing, up by 1,455 plans since 2023.
• 2,560 initial requests for an EHCP were made in 2023.

Key figures by school type

Statements/EHC plans and SEN support vary by school type and the figures for January 2024 for Lancashire-12 compared to England (across primary, secondary and special schools) show:

• For primary schools 2.7% of children have statements or EHC plans (England 3%), while 12.6% have SEN support (England 14.1%).
• For secondary schools 2.1% have statements or EHC plans (England 2.7%), while 11.7% have SEN support (England 12.9%).
• For special schools 99.8% have statements or EHC plans (England 99.2%), while 0.2% have SEN support (England 0.7%).

For further details please see the local authority data available in the data section below. For a range of data and intelligence around disability, please see our disability pages.

Routine data are collected by local authorities on children with statements of special educational needs, but this does not reflect the spectrum of disability and is only a weak proxy measure for severity. There is ongoing work to define disability in the context of the child’s participation in usual activities, using questionnaires to families and children. If this approach were to be adopted nationally (for local implementation) then meaningful comparisons could start to be made.

Thematic JSNA for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Lancashire

In 2019 we completed a thematic JSNA for SEND in Lancashire. This was a multi-agency project led by Sally Richardson, Head of Inclusion Service, Lancashire County Council and focused on the 0-25 population. In November 2017, a joint local area SEND inspection conducted identified areas of significant weakness in the local area's practice. As part of the Lancashire SEND partnership written statement of action, a JSNA was identified as necessary to help support the understanding of need across Lancashire. Below are the priorities compiled by the JSNA project group:

• Deprivation - delivering SEND services universally but proportionate to need in order to reduce inequalities
• Exclusions - reducing the number and rate of permanent exclusions from school
• Out of county placements - increasing the sufficiency and sustainability of school placements within Lancashire
• Health needs - delivering cost-effective, community-based health services across Lancashire
• Early identification/intervention - increasing awareness and detection of SEND and its risk factors
• Data - improving the quality and usefulness of data and promoting data sharing between agencies
• Joint working - developing joint working arrangements to improve outcomes
• Transitions - improving the experience of children and young people and their families at key transition points

 For further analysis relating to the SEND JSNA please use our SEND dashboard.

 

Updated assessment of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Lancashire

In January 2024 we completed an updated assessment of special educational need in Lancashire which provided an overview of the demographics of the SEN cohort and types of need in the local area. 8 recommendations were provided as a result of the summary document.

 

 

Further data Special educational needs in England (XLSX 13 KB) GCSE results by SEN/EHC, 2018 to 2019 (XLSX 1.5 MB) Speech, language and communication needs assessment report (PDF 555 KB)

Page updated November 2024