1. What are special educational needs and disabilities?

Definition of Special Educational Needs and Disability

What are special educational needs?

 - A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them (Section 20).

 - Special educational provision is provision that is additional to or different from that which would normally be provided for children or young people of the same age in a mainstream education setting (Section 21).

This definition of SEN is the same as the definition of SEN in the Education Act 1996.

What is a disability?

You’re disabled as defined under the Equality Act 2010 if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.

What ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ mean

• ‘substantial’ is more than minor or trivial - eg it takes much longer than it usually would to complete a daily task like getting dressed

• ‘long-term’ means 12 months or more - eg a breathing condition that develops as a result of a lung infection