The SEND Service supports children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), those undergoing an Education, Health and Care needs assessment, and their families.
We know how important it is for families to understand who is responsible for their child or young person's case and how to contact the SEND Service.
The SEND Team works through a pod-based system. Schools and educational settings are allocated to a SEND Pod, with each pod led by a Senior SEND Officer. The Senior SEND Officer provides oversight of the pod and helps ensure work and enquiries are directed to the appropriate SEND Officer.
Children and young people who are Electively Home Educated (EHE), receiving Education Other Than At School (EOTAS), in Alternative Provision (AP), or Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) are also allocated to a SEND Pod.
The pod arrangements are intended to provide clearer accountability, improve consistency and help SEND Officers develop stronger knowledge of the schools, settings and children and young people they support.
A team of SEND officers is available on duty each working day to respond to telephone calls and manage email enquiries.
Duty officers also undertake other SEND responsibilities, including attending EHCP review meetings. There may therefore be times when all available officers are in meetings and are temporarily unable to answer incoming calls.
The mailbox is monitored daily during office hours. Enquiries will be responded to as soon as possible, taking account of the nature of the enquiry and any information that may need to be gathered to provide a response.
Annual Review paperwork and statutory assessment requests
The arrangements for submitting Annual Review paperwork and requests for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment remain unchanged. These should be sent to:
We recognise that some parents and carers have experienced difficulties contacting the SEND Service and that communication has not always been as clear or consistent as families should expect. Feedback from families and the New Way of Working PDFexplains that these experiences have informed the development of the pod arrangements.
We continue to monitor how the duty and pod arrangements are working and will use feedback from children, young people, families, schools and professionals to support ongoing improvement.
