A statement of special educational needs (often known simply as ‘a statement’) is a legal document issued by a local education authority.
The document names a particular child, describes his or her special educational needs and sets out the special educational provision he or she should receive.
This statement is a proof of your disability; your ticket to official funds and support.
if you suspect your child might have any learning disabilities, you are entitled to having your child assessed for learning disabilities by your council's Local Education Authority. Normally you contact your child's school and request a statement.
Some schools can be slow to respond and then you have two other routes: you can go through your health authority (your GP) and/or you can write a letter directly to your council which should have a Special Education Needs (SEN) office or officer.
If parents feel that it is best to get their child tested for dyslexia, they can write to the Local Education Authority (LEA) themselves and request a free 'statutory assessment'. The LEA has six weeks to make a decision and it must comply with the request unless, having examined the evidence they believe it's not necessary. If the parents disagree with the LEA's decision they have a legal right to appeal to an independent, special educational needs tribunal (SENT).
If you are in university, you should be able to locate a Special Needs Officer within the university. The best place to locate this is to Search for Disability Co-ordinators on the Skill website (www.skill.org.uk), which is a national bureau for students over 16 years of age with any form of disabilities.
You could also look at the The National Federation of ACCESS Centres website (www.nfac.org.uk) to find a person to assess your need for support. It is recommended that diagnostic reports are provided by chartered, educational, clinical and works psychologists (previously known as occupational psychologists) or other qualified individuals - usually teachers - with a qualification in assessing students with specific learning difficulties.
Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) are funds available to dyslexic students in further and higher education.
There are four components of the Disabled Students’ Allowances.
The four allowances are:
• Specialist equipment - maximum £4,460 per course for full and part-time students.
• Non-medical helpers - maximum £11,280 per academic year of the course. For part-time students this allowance will be paid as a percentage of the full-time rate. For instance, if you were studying 50% of the full-time equivalent, the maximum amount you could receive per year would be £5,640.
• Other/general expenditure - maximum £1,490 per academic year of the course. For part-time students this allowance will be paid as a percentage of the full-time rate, as stated above.
• Disability-related travel costs – no maximum limits. There is no travel allowance category in Scotland.
Teachers who assess dyslexia should hold AMDA (Associate Membership of the British Dyslexia Association) or a qualification from an advanced training course involving the assessment of adults for dyslexia which is recognised by the British Dyslexia Association’s (BDA) Accreditation Board. A list of qualifications from courses accredited by the BDA is available on the BDA website:
www.bda-dyslexia.org.uk/main/accreditation
‘learning difficulty’ and ‘special educational needs’
The 1996 Education Act states that a child has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her. A child is held to have a ‘learning difficulty’ if: he or she has a greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age;
or
he or she has a disability that prevents or hinders him or her from making use of educational facilities generally available in local schools;
or
he or she is aged under five and is likely to fall into one of the first two groups when over that age.
Special educational needs may or may not be of a degree of severity or complexity that requires a statement to be made.
‘statement of special educational needs’
Statements are only issued when a child’s needs are so severe or complex that it is necessary for the local education authority to determine the special provision.
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