Targeted support

Targeted Support

Targeted services for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) or disabilities who need short term support or advice.  If your child has a special educational need (SEN), where their learning difficulty or disability calls for special educational provision (but not an Education Health and Care plan), what kind of support is available?

See also the fact sheet on the support that can be expected from schools for all pupils with SEN.

This includes maintained schools and academies that are not special schools, maintained nursery schools, 16 to19 academies, alternative provision academies and pupil referral units.

Schools have a duty to identify any difficulties that a pupil may have with learning or access to the whole curriculum, and put in place provision to address the issues or remove the barrier.  This may be through normal adjustments to teaching and/or providing additional targeted support.  Schools may also want to use outside expertise to give them further advice and support depending on the level of need.

In Tower Hamlets, schools have access to specialist advisory services that can carry out assessments, give training and provide advice to schools on how to include a range of special educational needs.

The Support for Learning Service advises schools regarding pupils with the following types of SEN:

• literacy
• language and communication
• behaviour and anti-bullying
• physical disability and chronic medical conditions
• vision impairment
• children who are deaf and partially hearing

The Education Psychology Service works with schools to improve their provision for SEN as well as advising on the needs of targeted children.

Schools are also able to make referrals to a range of other teams, for example Speech and Language Therapy for pupils with speech difficulties or language disorders.

Increasingly, schools can use their SEN budget to buy in additional support from Tower Hamlets services or other providers.

Further information

Parents who are worried about their child will need to talk to school staff first.  To contact your local school, please refer to the list of primary, secondary, nursery and special schools we have in the borough.

For the Support for Learning Service, please call Roland Ramanan at the Support for Learning Service on 020 7364 6440.

Speech and Language Therapy services are located at:

Mile End Hospital,
275 Bancroft Road,
London,
E1 4DG
Email: [email protected]

The council’s educational psychologist team also offers monthly surgeries in partnership with Tower Hamlets and City SEND Information Advice and Support Service.  Please contact SEND IASS for more information on 020 7364 6460.