The purpose of this booklet is to give you information about special needs support in Leicestershire schools. If your child has special educational needs, or if you think your child has special educational needs, this booklet will help you talk to your child's teachers about the plans they have to address those needs.

In every class at school there will be children who may at some time during their school years have special educational needs (SEN) identified. This may be a result of learning, emotional, behavioural, physical, hearing or visual, language or medical difficulties. Schools have a responsibility to monitor all children's progress and, where there are concerns, to take steps to help children learn more effectively. All Leicestershire's schools have money in their budgets to help children with special educational needs and to provide time for a Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator to devise a plan with you and your child's teachers.

The plan to help your child should be tailor-made to the kind of difficulty he or she is experiencing. It may take the form of:

Although extra help or support from an adult is sometimes appropriate, it is not the only way of helping children with special educational needs. Sometimes other things are more important, for example, making sure that a child with a hearing impairment is sitting in the place where they can best see and hear the teacher, or making sure that all materials given to a child with a visual impairment are properly enlarged.