Remote Education: Special Educational Needs

(asked on 21st April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice and guidance they have provided to parents of children who do not qualify for school attendance and who have dyslexia, autism and other neuro diverse conditions about how to support those children successfully at home; whether such guidance is published; and if so, where.


Answered by
Baroness Berridge Portrait
Baroness Berridge
This question was answered on 7th May 2020

We have published guidance on supporting vulnerable children and young people at this time:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people.

We have also published guidance on how risk assessments should be carried out for children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-send-risk-assessment-guidance.

This guidance sets out the practicalities for local authorities and other providers in undertaking risk assessments for vulnerable children and young people with EHC plans, in light of school and college closures. Schools remain open to the vulnerable, and children in care and local authority Virtual School Heads are actively tailoring their expert offer of advice and support to the current circumstances. This includes the provision of additional resources such as online learning – in addition to our offer of laptops and tablets – and support for carers where children are unable to attend school. We are asking local authorities to work with educational providers, families and the child or young person to carry out a risk assessment to judge whether the child or young person’s needs cannot be met safely at home. Where the risk assessment determines a child or young person with an EHC plan will be as safe or safer at an educational setting, it may be more appropriate for them to attend the educational setting.

These are rapidly developing circumstances; we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.

Reticulating Splines