We Read 63 Kent Schools’ SEND Information Reports So You Don’t Have To.
Here’s What We Discovered.

In Part 1 we asked a simple question of a sample of 63 Kent schools: can a parent find the SEN Information Report the law says must be on the website, is it in date, and is anything missing? Nineteen passed. This time we read what each of those 63 schools publishes, in full, through five pairs of eyes: a worried parent, the child the report is about, an educational psychologist, an Ofsted inspector under the new inclusion grade, and the law. The short version: most of these documents were written to be published, not to be read. The detailed figures below cover the 61 we could analyse line by line, 276,000 words in all. It matters, because this is the document that tells you what a school thinks special educational needs are, who gets help, and how.

How we read them

• The sample is the same 63 Kent schools as Part 1, chosen systematically from the public list, 42 primary and 21 secondary. We read what every one of the 63 publishes. The detailed figures cover 61 documents: 60 SEN Information Reports and, at one school, the annual evaluation reports it publishes in their place. Two schools aren’t in those figures: one publishes only a short web page, and the other’s website went down before we could go back over its report line by line.
• Every report was read in full against the same nine-heading brief. Each was scored out of five on five lenses and checked against the 13 things the SEND Regulations say it must contain. Where a report used pictures or diagrams, we checked the page itself, not just the text.
• The five lenses: a parent (can I find help, understand it, know what happens next?), a child (is any of this for me?), an educational psychologist (is identification and support sound?), Ofsted (does it show what inspectors now look for on inclusion?), and the law.
• We looked for the best as well as the worst. It is there, and it is all from Kent.

1. Most of them are the same document

Thirty-seven of the 61 are built on one shared Kent template, and nineteen still carry its “Kent SEND Information Report” running header. There is nothing wrong with a template. The trouble starts when a school publishes one it hasn’t finished, or hasn’t made its own.

• The first question gets the same answer almost everywhere. Asked what kinds of SEN the school provides for, 32 reports give only the four broad areas of need from the Code of Practice, usually as the template’s diagram. Nothing about this school: how many children, which needs, what it does well.
• Fifteen still contain the template’s instructions to the author, or other debris. Lines telling the writer to insert their provision or add links to local support services. “[Name]” and “[Date]” left in the approval box. One cover page asks whether the document is based on a model policy, and answers yes.
• The template’s sorting sentence appears in 29. “Pupils who don’t have SEND usually make progress quickly once the gap in their learning has been filled.” Read it again. It says that whether your child has special educational needs is decided by how fast they respond to a bit of catch-up. That isn’t what the Code of Practice says, and no psychologist would put it that way.
• Thirteen prepare children with SEND for secondary school using the same template list, word for word, including “plugging any gaps in knowledge”. Some add ideas of their own, like social stories or extra visits. It’s a reasonable start. The trouble is that it is the same start everywhere.
• Other schools’ words. Another school’s name. A preschool that isn’t part of the school. A previous SENCO. A sentence saying the SENCO “will work with our SENCO”. A child’s first name, left in one report.

2. As a parent: can I get help, and what happens next?

• Who do I contact? Thirty-three reports give a direct email for the SENCO. Twenty-one send you through the office. The best tell you which days the SENCO works and how to raise a worry without waiting for a meeting. One secondary warns that the SENCO teaches and often can’t take a call.
• What happens when I raise a concern? Almost always the same thing. You tell the class teacher. “Universal strategies” are tried for six to twelve weeks, or until the next term. Then the SENCO may get involved. Only a handful give a response time a parent could hold the school to, such as 48 hours.
• How often will I be met? The Code of Practice says a school should meet the parents of a child on SEN support at least three times a year. Read closely, only about half the reports actually promise it. The rest water it down: twice a year, an optional review, a written update instead of a meeting, a slot after parents’ evening, or no promise at all. One secondary says plainly that it can’t always meet every family three times.
• What does support actually look like? The good ones tell you in things you can picture. A trolley of sensory kit in every classroom. A worry box checked every day. Staff at playtime watching for children who are often on their own. A day in July to meet next year’s teacher. A picture book about the school for every new starter. Nurture rooms with the names of the adults who run them. The weak ones say they provide a range of interventions and move on.
• Money. Fifteen reports tell you the school is expected to fund the first £6,000 of a child’s extra support itself. The honest ones add that applications for more may not succeed. One school publishes its whole SEN budget. Most say nothing.
• Parents as unpaid support staff. Five reports suggest a parent may be asked, or invited, to come along and support their own child on trips or activities. Another makes trips depend on funding for one-to-one support. Under the Equality Act, the duty to make reasonable adjustments belongs to the school, not the parent.
• Readability. The median report is 4,565 words long with a reading-ease score of 41, the “difficult” band usually linked with university-level reading. The Code asks for “clear, straightforward language”. Fifty-eight of the 61 score below 50.

3. As a child: is any of this for me?

This was the weakest lens by a distance. The average score was 2.7 out of 5, and 23 reports scored two or less.

• Not one report is written for a child, has a child’s version, or tells a child how to raise a worry themselves. The nearest is a secondary that tells students they can go to reception and ask for their year’s welfare lead.
• “Pupil voice” is a formula. In most reports it’s the same four bullet points: attend a meeting, prepare a drawing or video, talk to a member of staff, complete a survey. A handful make it real: a views form in symbols, home visits so staff meet children on their own ground, a daily worry box, support that carries on until the young person says it’s no longer helping.
• Some things a child should never read about themselves. One published report counts, year by year, the pupils working below their age, and lists the funding received for individual, numbered pupils to the penny. Another measures whether emotional support worked by whether the child picks up fewer behaviour points. Another says children with high levels of SEND can’t access learning suitable for their age.
• Bullying. The word doesn’t appear in 21 of the 61 reports, even though the regulations require the report to cover measures to prevent it. Several say “zero tolerance” and nothing else. One report’s section on emotional support spends its time explaining what doesn’t count as bullying, including fights between children of equal strength. Only one says that children with SEND are at greater risk of being bullied.

4. As an educational psychologist: is the thinking sound?

• Identification is diagnosis-shaped. No report says a diagnosis isn’t needed. One defines special educational needs as a diagnosed difficulty or disability, which is wrong in law. Two secondaries put a child on the SEND register only once they are receiving significant extra support, which defines need by resources. Two primaries keep their register for “significant and complex needs”. The Code says SEN support is for any child who needs provision “additional to or different from” what the school normally offers, diagnosis or not.
• Assessment. About a third name the tools they use: standardised reading and language tests, the Boxall Profile, dyslexia and dyscalculia screeners. Others say they use “a range of assessment tools”. Ten say the school will “determine the cause” of a child’s difficulty, which a school screener can’t do. One says plainly that its screening is no substitute for a clinical diagnosis. That’s the right note.
• The graduated approach (assess, plan, do, review) is pasted in unchanged in most. Where it has content, it’s good: a baseline before every intervention and a measure after, reviews at six, eight or twelve weeks, targets colour-coded each term. One school waits two terms to review, which is a long time in a seven-year-old’s life.
• Language that dates the thinking. Ten still use terms from the system replaced in 2014: statements, Waves, IEPs. Three list “behaviour difficulties” as a kind of special educational need. Four talk about a child’s “learning style”.
• Specialist time is scarce, and a few say so. One buys three days of educational psychologist time a year, another six. A third says its arrangement doesn’t stretch to assessing individual children. That honesty helps. If you’re waiting for an EP assessment, you need to know how little time the school has to share across every child.

5. As Ofsted: would an inspector see inclusion?

Under the renewed inspection framework, inclusion is graded in its own right: how early and accurately needs are spotted, how teaching adapts, whether leaders know what works, and whether parents are partners. More on the new inclusion grades →

• Early identification looks strong where screening is systematic and dated. Two schools publish their screening timetable, and one tests every SEND pupil’s reading at the start and end of each year. It looks weak where the only trigger is “if the teacher notices”.
• Adaptive teaching is the same list almost everywhere: processing time, pre-teaching vocabulary, reading instructions aloud, coloured overlays. It becomes convincing when a school names its own approach.
• Knowing it works. Fifty reports mention a provision map. Only one includes real impact data: a governors’ report that admits, to its credit, that new wellbeing resources aren’t yet used in every classroom. Four say the quality of their teaching “is judged to be” good or outstanding, which isn’t evidence of anything.
• Training is specific and dated in a handful. The rest say all staff receive SEND training and leave it there.
• The inclusion strategy that schools must publish by 31 December 2026 under the Department for Education’s Inclusive Mainstream Fund isn’t mentioned in any of the 61.

6. As the law: what schools are compelled to do, and where this sample falls short

• On a full reading, 18 of the 63 schools were missing at least one of the 13 required items (Part 1 has the detail). The commonest gap is the one that matters most when things go wrong: contact details for IASK, the independent advice service. Thirteen leave it out, and another 28 name a service, or link to a web page, without a phone number or email. Three send parents to KELSI, Kent’s website for education professionals, when looking for the Local Offer.
• Six have nothing on equipment and facilities, four don’t say where the Local Offer is, and five have no complaints route.
• Some get the law wrong or out of date. One says a child with an EHC plan naming the school goes to the top of the waiting list. In fact a school named in a plan must admit the child. Another says it must be sure it’s the right provision before offering a place. One explains its disability duties under the Disability Discrimination Act, which the Equality Act replaced in 2010. Several cite the 2012 Admissions Code, which has since been replaced twice.
• And a data-protection problem. One report contains a child’s first name; another lists per-pupil funding and a needs table. We haven’t named those schools and won’t. We’d rather they fixed it.

What a good one looks like

Every element of a good SEN Information Report already exists somewhere in this sample. A parent should be able to read, in plain English and in under ten minutes:

1. Who the SENCO is, their direct email and phone number, and when they work.
2. What needs the school provides for, with this year’s numbers: how many children are on SEN support, and how many have an EHC plan.
3. How to raise a concern today, and how quickly someone will reply.
4. What support looks like, in things you can picture: the trolley, the worry box, the nurture room and who runs it.
5. How often you’ll be met, with the dates in the calendar, and what each meeting is for.
6. Which assessments the school uses, and that a diagnosis isn’t needed for support.
7. The money, plainly: what the school funds, what it has to apply for, and that applications may not succeed.
8. The complaints route as named steps, then governors, then mediation and tribunal.
9. IASK’s number, 03000 41 3000, and a link to the Kent Local Offer.
10. Something written for the child.

What to do with this

1. Read your school’s report with the ten points above beside you. Our 60-second check in Part 1 covers the basics.
2. Where it’s vague, ask the specific question. “Which assessments would you use?” “How many weeks before the SENCO is involved?” “When are our three meetings this year?”
3. If it says or implies that your child needs a diagnosis first, it’s wrong. Ask for support based on need, in writing. Our free letter template does it for you.
4. If the document is unfinished or out of date, tell the SENCO, then the governors. Most will be grateful.
5. Get free, independent advice. IASK: 03000 41 3000.

About the author: Lauren Robson

Lauren is the founder of Education With Lauren, a qualified teacher and SEND specialist with 16 years’ experience across mainstream schools, Kent County Council provisions and specialist settings. She holds a BA (Hons) in Primary Education with QTS (SpLD, Needs and Inclusion) and an MSc in Neuroscience and Brain Cognition, and is an approved education supplier to Kent County Council.

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