4.7.1 Schools meet most children’s learning needs through tailoring their approaches to suit individual pupil’s different learning needs and styles. Where children do not make adequate progress within this approach, schools do something additional or different. This is usually further action within the school such as additional adult support (‘school action’) but they may also bring in help from health or social work professionals (‘school action plus’) or for pupils with the most severe learning, sensory or physical difficulties, the school will make and implement a ‘Statement of Special Educational Needs’ which sets out the child’s needs in detail and the special education provision to be made for them (referred as ‘statemented pupils’ hereafter).
4.7.2 One-fifth (20%) of pupils at maintained primary and secondary schools in the South West has special educational needs (totalling almost 135,000 pupils). Most of these pupils (63%) are supported by further action within the school (school action) while three-in-ten (29%) require support from health or social professionals (school action plus). Fewer than one-in-ten (9%) has a Statement of Special Educational Needs. Mainstream schools accommodate almost three-fifths (57%) of statemented pupils in the South West with most of the remaining (39% of statemented pupils) pupils educated in special schools (Department for Education, Special Educational Needs in England, January 2010).
4.7.3 Across all provision, there were 20,190 pupils in the South West with a Statement of Special Educational Need in 2010. At 3%, this represents the same proportion of the total pupil population as the national average.
4.7.4 The South West had 92 special schools in 2010, two fewer than in 2007. The number of young people attending a special school increased marginally, however, over the period, rising from 7,240 in 2007 to 7,410 in 2010. Special schools educate less than two-fifths (39%) of the 20,640 young people in the South West who have a statement of Special Educational Needs. More than half (55%) of young people attending special schools in the South West have a learning difficulty, one-in -six (17%) have behavioural, emotional and/or social difficulties, almost one-fifth (17%) has an autistic spectrum disorder and one-in-ten (11%) has a visual impairment, physical disability or other difficulty. More than one quarter (28%) of pupils attending a special school are known to be eligible for free school meals (compared with 13% of primary schools pupils and 10% of secondary school pupils).
