Special Educational Needs
A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or a disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.
Legal Definitions
Special Educational Provision
Special educational provision is any educational or training provision that is:
- additional to, or different from, than made generally for other children or young people of the same age.
This is a wide definition. It could cover a wide range of things. For example, having materials provided in a larger font.
Learning Difficulty
A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if they:
- Have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or
- Have a disability which prevents them from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.
Reasonable adjustments
Reasonable adjustments are changes that organisations and people providing services or public functions have to make for you. This is if your disability puts you at a disadvantage compared with others who are not disabled.