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Special Educational Needs in Rhondda Cynon Taff
HCB understands how difficult special educational needs law can be for parents to navigate in order to obtain support to ensure their child’s needs are met. Our special educational needs (SEN) solicitors have helped many parents and young people in Rhondda Cynon Taff, providing expert education law advice to secure special educational needs support for several children, young people and families.
Our specialist education law solicitors have dealt with Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council on numerous matters. This can involve an appeal to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales.
What are Special Educational Needs in Rhondda Cynon Taff?
Special educational needs are any difficulty a child or young person has in accessing education. Special educational needs (SEN) affect how a person learns. The needs can affect everything from:
- physical ability
- concentration levels
- ability to understand
- hearing and/or visual impairment
- behaviour
- literacy and/or numeracy
- anxiety
- sensory processing
- executive functioning
- reading, writing and spelling
- social skills
If a child or young person has difficulties in accessing school, education, or facilities at school and requires support beyond that typically made for young people of the same age, they likely have special educational needs.
If you are not sure whether your child or young person has special educational needs, you should seek specific legal advice.
Rhondda Cynon Taff SEN teams operate under their own policies, but also must comply with the Education Law 1996 and the SEN Code of Practice for Wales. Whilst the law can be complicated, in our experience the policies can overly simplify the law and confuse quite complex rules. This can result in poor decision making. That is often why parents in Rhondda Cynon Taff seek special educational needs advice from us.
If the special educational needs team in Rhondda Cynon Taff relies on policies exclusively, rather than the law, this can lead to difficulties. We have extensive experience of providing special educational needs advice in Rhondda Cynon Taff. We have helped several families successfully appeal to SENTW against decisions taken by Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council SEN team.
Rhondda Cynon Taff’s SEN policies and guidance can be found here:
http://www.rctcbc.gov.uk/EN/Resident/SchoolsandLearning/SpecialEducationalNeedsSENSupport.aspx
We would always advise parents to make sure that they focus on the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice and current legislation, rather than Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council’s SEN policies only. The SEN Code of Practice can be found here:
What is SEN Support in Rhondda Cynon Taff?
Normally, schools will identify that a child or young person has special educational needs. When this happens, the class teacher and Additional Learning Needs Coordinator (ALNCo), will plan additional support and arrange provision from the school’s own resources.
If the school does not identify a pupil with special educational needs, it may be necessary to seek a statutory assessment of their special educational needs from Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council. This is a formal and legal process.
If the child or young person needs more support than the school can provide, a Statement of SEN will be required to assist them. It is very important to note that there is no requirement to try the graduated response of School Action or School Action Plus before seeking a statutory assessment or a Statement of SEN; this can be requested at any time. An Individual Education Plan (IEP) is also not a document that has any legal force.
How can I get a Statement in Rhondda Cynon Taff?
Before a Statement of SEN can be issued, Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council must make a statutory assessment.
At the conclusion of the assessment, Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council will decide whether a Statement of SEN is necessary.
The term “necessary” has been the focus of much litigation. It means that the Local Authority must consider the subjective needs of the child or young person, the special educational provision that they need and whether it is reasonably likely that a mainstream school can deliver that support.
If Rhondda Cynon Taff refuses to make and maintain a Statement to cater for the child’s additional learning needs, you can appeal to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales.
Where can I find SEN legal advice in Rhondda Cynon Taff?
Our special education needs solicitors provide advice in Rhondda Cynon Taff. To contact our specialist education lawyers, please call 02920 291 704 or email education@hcbgroup.com
We have helped in the following ways:
- Formally requesting a statutory assessment with Rhondda Cynon Taff County Council
- Successful appeals to Tribunal against Rhondda Cynon Taff’s refusal to make and maintain a Statement of SEN
- Successful appeals to Tribunal against Rhondda Cynon Taff’s refusal to conduct a statutory assessment
- Successfully appealing to Tribunal against Rhondda Cynon Taff for additional support and funding
- Successfully appealing to Tribunal against Rhondda Cynon Taff for placements at specialist/independent schools