Statement of Special Educational Needs

An educational “statement” is an assessment that looks at what your special educational needs are and then writes them down so that people know what you need to help you do well at school. An educational psychologist will visit you at school to see which things at school are difficult for you if your teacher or social worker thinks that this could be helpful for you. An educational psychologist is someone who knows about how people learn things and the sorts of things that can stop them learning well at school.

If the assessment shows that you do have some special problems with learning people sometimes refer to this as being “statemented” or having “a statement”. Often this is a really good thing because it means that Children Schools and Families now have to provide extra things to help you learn. This may mean that an extra person comes to the classroom specially to help you or that you may go to a school where they can help you more than your current school.