“Identifying and assessing special educational needs for children or young people whose first language is not English requires particular care. Schools should look carefully at all aspects of a child or young person’s performance in different areas of learning and development or subjects to establish whether lack of progress is due to limitations in their command of English or if it arises from special educational needs or a Disability. Difficulties related solely to limitations in English as an additional language are not special educational needs.”
6.24 Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years January 2015
The Equality Diversity Inclusion Team - EDIT (formally Inclusion Support Service Kent (ISSK)) provide bespoke and centralised training, consultancy and direct support to schools to help assess whether a pupil has English as an additional language, special educational needs or both.
During the training sessions staff will:
- develop awareness of differences between English as an additional language and special educational needs
- explore the complexities surrounding effective identification of special educational needs in a child/young person with English as an additional language
- be introduced to effective identification procedures.
If a school or setting needs help assessing a pupil to ascertain whether they have English as an additional language, special educational needs or both, our highly qualified advisory teachers will be able to model an assessment using our ‘Language, culture or special needs? Guidelines for professionals in schools and early years settings’.