What is a SENCO?

A Specialist Needs Coordinator (SENCO) is a teacher who is responsible for the special educational needs of students in a school. This includes children and young people with a disability.

How They Can Support

Their role is to ensure that all students have the necessary support to continue learning at a similar pace to their peers. They may work directly with the students and the staff that support and work with them. They work with parents and carers, to ensure they are aware of what support has been put in place, and to update them on the student’s progress and needs.

Their support can include:

• Working with students to help when learning. This may mean helping them with different academic skills like reading, writing and numeracy. This can either be inside the classroom or in additional one-on-one time.
• Communicating with parents and carers, so they are aware of the support their child is receiving, and to answer any queries they may have.
• Keeping records of students needs up-to-date, along with any support they are receiving in school.
• Assessing and reviewing the provision that is being given to children who have SEN, once their needs have been identified.
• Maintaining relevant and up-to-date learning support resources for use in school.
• Sharing suitable resources for families to use at home.

Where They are Based

SENCOs are based in schools. How they are organised will depend on the size of the school, and/or the number of students with specialist educational needs (SEN). The school may have a designated SEN team or it may be a teacher or a deputy head that has this responsibility.

How to Contact Them

Every school in the UK must employ a SENCO. To find out about the local school provision, speak to a teacher, deputy head, head teacher or school office. To learn more about SENCOs, why not check out this informative webpage, which covers this is more detail., or this helpful resource from BBC Bitesize.