One of the most important school website requirements is the publication of your SEND Information Report.  This is a report on the implementation of your SEND Policy.  Your SEND Policy could well be used as a framework for your report.

There is clear guidance in the SEND Code of Practice for publishing a SEND Report which should be updated at least annually.

Schools are required to publish a range of information on their school website. This is to comply with the School Information Regulations and other legislation.

What is the SEND Information Report?

In short, the SEND Information Report outlines the school’s provision for pupils with SEND and how the school will implement its SEND Policy.  You must also explain within the report where the local authority’s local offer is published.  It must include information for identifying, assessing and making provision for pupils with SEND and for the admission of disabled pupils.  Your report should contain everything that Ofsted would want to see linked to the DfE requirements.

Remember though, it is not just a report for Ofsted.

What must the SEND Information Report contain?

These are the requirements you need to meet:

• 11.1 – As part of building your SEND Information Report we recommend taking this into account and then referencing this in your report. Whenever you reference something within your report make sure it is easily visible and not hidden away. This is because some reports can be very long with lots of text and they can easily get lost.
• 11.1.1 – This should be covered within your Admissions Arrangements policy anyway but you need it to include this within your report too.
• 11.1.2 – This will be unique for each school, you just need to detail out what you as a school do to ensure disabled pupils are not treated less favourably than other
• 11.1.3 – You need to state what facilities you have throughout your school campus which are helping disabled pupils access the school
• 11.2 – Make sure this is referenced clearly within the report. So clearly that you don’t need to go looking around for it.
• 11.2.1 – What areas of your curriculum have you changed slightly to ensure disabled pupils can participate in it
• 11.2.2 – What have you improved around your school to ensure disabled pupils take can full advantage of the education or services you offer
• 11.2.3 – With any information that is readily accessible to pupils who are not disabled how have you improved the delivery to those pupils who do have a disability

All the information I have detailed above needs to be found in your SEND Information Report.

Great Examples

Shelley First School – looking at this example you can see they have done more than just adding a document onto a page. They have added contact details of their SENCOs as well as pictures so you know who you’re talking to. There is a link to the policies page on their Trust website too. They also have split up their local offer and SEND documents rather than just clumping them together. I also love the FAQ document they have included on their SEND page.

St Barnabas Primary School – I also really like this SEND page. You get an introduction to their SENDCO, as well as links and documents to helpful resources. My favourite part is where they have added a few sentences about life at their school with pupils of all abilities. This is a very basic however great SEND page. As they have gone above and beyond than just chucking a few documents on the page

Lytham St Annes High School – This is my all-time favourite SEND page, this includes everything you should have. Policies, reports and documents, bets time and day to contact the SENDCO. They even show how they help to identify additional needs pupils and the support that will be offered to you and them. Then to top all of this off they have a testimonial page of parents reviews of their child’s time. This is invaluable as it will help paint a picture in peoples minds on how their child will be treated.

Next Steps

Hopefully, this has fully equipped you to go away and make your SEND Report fully compliant. You will have noticed that I made the word report bold throughout the blog. This is because a common misconception is this is a policy. This is a report and if it is stated as a policy it will make this section non-compliant.

Now head over to schudio.tv and here you will see an abundance of resources SEND related which will help train and equip you to assist your students who have additional needs. This will help you go above and beyond what is required of you. While you are over there why not enrol yourself on our compliance course too. This will also help you become compliant with every area of the compliance checker to get your website 100% compliant.

Alternatively, why not get a Pro School Website Audit performed by the Schudio team on your website. Drop us an email at hi@schudio.com or find out more here and we’ll get this arranged for you.