SENCO — Special Educational Needs Coordinator — is a role every UK school is legally required to have, yet many parents only encounter the term once a specific concern has already arisen, without a clear sense of what the role actually covers.
What a SENCO actually does
They coordinate support for children with special educational needs across the whole school — working with class teachers to identify difficulties, arranging assessments where appropriate, liaising with external specialists (educational psychologists, speech and language therapists), and ensuring appropriate support plans are genuinely put in place and reviewed.
When it's worth contacting the SENCO directly
- A persistent, specific concern (reading, spelling, maths, attention, or behaviour) that hasn't improved despite consistent support from the class teacher over more than one term
- You suspect an underlying difficulty (dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, or similar) worth formally assessing
- Your child already has a diagnosis, and you want to discuss what specific support the school can put in place
- You're not getting clear answers from general conversations with the class teacher about ongoing concerns
What to expect from an initial SENCO conversation
A genuinely good SENCO conversation should cover: what's already been tried in class, what additional in-school support (if any) is being considered, whether external referral is appropriate, and a reasonably clear next step with a rough timeframe — not a vague "we'll keep an eye on it" with no plan.
The typical process from there
Depending on the concern, next steps might include closer in-class monitoring, a specific intervention programme, or referral for external assessment (which can genuinely take time — worth asking about realistic timescales early). Persistent concerns may eventually lead toward a formal support plan or, for more significant needs, an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessment.
A practical tip for the conversation
Bringing specific, concrete examples (a piece of work, a particular recurring struggle, dates and patterns you've noticed) makes the conversation considerably more productive than a general sense that "something's not right" — SENCOs work with specifics far more effectively than vague concern alone.
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