Education and neurodiversity

Neurodivergence affects the way a child and young person learns. Neurodivergent children and young people may have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). All education settings have a special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO), who you can speak to if you feel that your child may need additional support in school.

Educational settings must legally support students with special educational needs and disabilities; this means that settings must put reasonable adjustments in place to support them (Section 1.34 SEND Code of Practice).

Students DO NOT need a formal diagnosis for school to put specialist support in place.

An individualised, needs-led is taken in Leeds where every child and young person can get the educational support they need whether they have a formal diagnosis or not.  This approach may be enough to support a child/young person to thrive without a formal diagnosis.

This needs-led approach is supported by the Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) Graduated Approach to support in schools. The Graduated Approach is a repeated and ongoing process, including 4 stages:

1. Assessment of your child’s strengths and challenges, with the support of the Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCo) in the setting.
2. Plan – make a plan of specific support to meet your child’s needs and agree progress deadlines.
3. Do – provide the extra support in the plan and measure progress.
4. Review – your child’s progress and decide the next steps with you and your child.

This is a video explaining the Graduated Approach to support made by Leeds City Council.