Education East Sussex SEND Services
Overview
Education East Sussex is a division within East Sussex County Council's Children's Services that works together with schools and families to deliver excellence and inclusion in education.
Education East Sussex is a combination of previous divisions known as ISEND (Inclusion, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) and SLES (Schools Standards, Learning and Effectiveness Service).
Within this division are services that support children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). These services are listed on this page.
Please note, some of the services below are linked to the East Sussex Local Offer directory, on 1Space. The directory provides their full service and contact details.
Accessing the services
Most of these services are accessed via Education Front Door referrals on Czone. Referrals are usually made by professionals who support children such as the Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in schools and nurseries:
Assessment and Planning (A&P)
The Assessment and Planning team manages the assessment and planning process for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for children and young people aged 0 to 25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND):
Interim Provision Service (IPS)
The Interim Provision Service (IPS) is an interim teaching service for children and young people:
- between 5-25 years old
- with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), and
- who are not on roll of a school and are awaiting an educational placement
Teaching support is accessed only via referral from an Assessment and Planning Officer (APO) in the Assessment and Planning (A&P) Team. Schools, parents and other services or professionals are unable to refer or request support from IPS.
SEND Placement Support Service (SEND PSS)
The SEND Placement Support Service (SEND PSS) supports the successful placement of learners in their local mainstream school.
SEND PSS support is accessed only via an internal referral from the Assessment and Planning (A&P) Team for a focused piece of work. Schools, parents and other services or professionals are unable to refer or request support from SEND PSS.
SEND Post 16 & INMS team
The SEND Post 16 & INMS (independent and non-maintained schools) team work closely with other teams within the Local Authority. Their main role is to support providers in the post 16 and INMS to deliver high quality, inclusive provision. This aims to meet the need of all young people in their setting, along with high quality transition. This is achieved through Quality Assurance and close working with providers to support continual improvements.
The team also oversee the High Needs Funding applications for post 16 provisions. This ensures young people get the funding they need to access learning and meet their aspirations.
Children's Disability Service (CDS)
The Children’s Disability Service (CDS) helps children who have severe and enduring cognitive delay and severe learning disability, low functional abilities and who may also have physical disabilities. We assess children up to 16 years old, and their families, for social care support:
Please note, CDS is a part of Children's Social Care.
Early Intervention Service (EIS)
EIS and Early Intervention (EI) workers will work alongside families and other agencies in a team around the child approach, to identify what support will work best. Initially families will be offered information advice and guidance about appropriate mainstream, universal, or targeted resources in the community which may meet their child’s needs.
Where necessary the EI worker will directly support families to access services or funding, from charities and other sources, to ensure that disabled children and their family receive timely, coordinated support.
EIS is accessed via referral from the Children's Disability Service.
Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)
PBS is a small team of specialist Positive Behaviour Support practitioners, forming part of the Children’s Disability Service social care team. Positive Behaviour Support is a recognised approach to working with behaviours that challenge. PBS works in a person-centred way to promote wellbeing and ensure the environment suits children’s needs.
PBS is accessed via referral from the Children's Disability Service.
Communication, Learning, Autism Support Service (CLASS)
Communication, Learning and Autism Support Service (CLASS) offers support, advice and training to mainstream schools and academies. We work with other services to support children and young people to access full-time education.
Our staff hold specialist qualifications in speech, language and communication needs (SLCN, including autism) and specific learning difficulties:
CLASS+ and Spectrum are a part of CLASS.
CLASS+
CLASS+ works across East Sussex to support families/carers of Autistic children and young people. Their aim is to provide guidance and training that enables families/carers to build their understanding of the strengths and challenges faced by Autistic children and young people and to develop greater confidence in how to support them:
CLASS+ regularly run sessions throughout East Sussex, called ‘CLASS+ Coffee & Chat Sessions’, that allow parents and carers the opportunity to listen, share questions, ideas and experiences with other parents. These sessions are designed to support parents and carers who have an Autistic child, or a child who is on the Autism pathway.
This team is part of the CLASS service.
Early Years' Service (EYS)
The Early Years’ Service (EYS) supports pre-school aged children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
This may include complex needs, including pre-school aged children who have English as an Additional Language where those needs create a barrier to learning and inclusion.
Parents and carers can also download the Early Years' Service referral form as a Word document.
Education Support, Behaviour and Attendance Service (ESBAS)
The Education Support, Behaviour and Attendance Service (ESBAS) is in the process of a restructure to better support schools and children and young people with poor attendance, difficult, dangerous or concerning behaviour, issues related to bullying and/or those at serious risk of suspension or exclusion.
This page will be updated to reflect those changes as soon as they are available.
Educational Psychology Service (EPS)
The Educational Psychology Service (EPS) focuses primarily on the learning, social and emotional development of problems encountered by children & young people aged 0-25 years, within their educational setting.
The work of an educational psychologist can either be directly with a child, or group of children or indirectly through their work with parents/carers, teachers and other professionals. Indirect work often involves research, training, consultation and discussion to clarify the precise nature and requirements of any psychological intervention proposed either at the individual or systems level. Direct work can involve delivering a psychological intervention to an individual child or group but usually involves some form of assessment.
Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing (MHEW) in Education Team
The Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing in Education Team is part of the Educational Psychology Service. The MHEW Advisers combine qualifications and experience from teaching, school leadership, coaching, mentoring, mediation, youth, and family support work, with a passion for supporting individual and community mental health and emotional wellbeing. The team supports primary, secondary and post-16 settings to develop whole organisation practice relating to MHEW, including;
- Raising awareness of MHEW issues in schools and colleges
- Training, developing and delivering CPD programmes for schools to help them identify children and young people with mental health concerns and put in place appropriate, sustainable support
- Guidance on issues relating to MHEW
- Resources and toolkits
- Events and conferences
- Supervision for MH Leads and other school staff
- Sharing best practice and supporting schools and colleges to implement recommendations from research and legislation
The Whole School Approach encompasses and mobilises the whole school or college to promote student and staff wellbeing, and address mental health issues. This type of approach has been shown to be most effective in promoting social and emotional wellbeing than those which focus on only one or two aspects of school or college life:
- Read the MHEW in Education Service Brochure
- Read A Whole School or College Approach
- Find out more about the Whole School Approach
- Find out about MHEW Training and Networking
- Find MHEW Practical Resources
English as an Additional Language Service (EALS)
We are a team of specialist English as an Additional Language (EAL) teachers and Bilingual Support Officers (BSO). We work with pupils who have English as an additional language to help them access the curriculum and fully integrate in to school life. We work with pupils from the Foundation Stage, KS1-4 and post-16.
We have BSOs speaking many of the languages spoken in East Sussex including Arabic, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and Portuguese:
Sensory Needs Service (SNS)
The Sensory Needs Service provides support to hearing impaired (HI) and visually impaired (VI) children across all ages and ability ranges and their families. They also provide guidance to educational settings and other professionals supporting children with sensory needs.
The SNS team works directly with children and their families, pre-schools and schools to support and promote inclusion of children with hearing Impairments and visual impairments in a range of settings:
Sibling Service (Sibs)
The Sibling Service (Sibs) provide short breaks and activity days for children aged 6 to 17 who have a brother or sister with a disability:
Spectrum
Spectrum is a free, county-wide service that helps Autistic children and young people ‘aged 5–18’ to join in activities in their local community, develop their independence and build confidence in developing key life skills:
- Find out more about Spectrum
- View Spectrum service terms and conditions
- View the Spectrum referral form
This team is part of the CLASS service.
Teaching and Learning Provision (TLP)
The Teaching and Learning Provision (TLP) provides educational support for children and young people aged 5 to 16 who are unable to attend school full-time because of illness (physical or mental health):
You can also read the TLP Medical Needs Service Policy (August 2022) PDF.
Elective Home Education (EHE)
The Elective Home Education (EHE) service fulfils the statutory duties within the Education Act 1996 for families that choose to electively home educate their children. The EHE service provide advice and support to families to enable home educators to provide the best possible education for their child and satisfy the Local Authority’s duty to establish that a child is in receipt of a suitable education:
Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) support
The TLP also supports Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) children to achieve their academic potential in school. They have created a website, called The Stopping Place, which outlines the support available:
- Find out more by visiting The Stopping Place
Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms
Some of the terms used on this website are explained on our page, Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms.