1st May 2014

• The SEN Code of Practice is a very important document. It tells local authorities, schools, nurseries, colleges, health services and other organisations how to interpret the law in relation to children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. Nobody is allowed to ignore what it says.

  Last autumn, the Department for Education published a new SEN Code of Practice, to reflect the SEN reforms contained in the Children and Families Bill. A consultation on the new Code and Regulations received over 700 responses (including one from us!).

  On 16 April 2014, the Department of Education published a second, revised version of the Code. This reflects last-minute changes to the legislation (now enshrined in the Children and Families Bill 2014), but also contains many other revisions completely unrelated to this. We assume that these changes have been made in response to consultation feedback, but as no consultation report was available, we can’t be sure.

  The Department for Education ran a short, second consultation which ended on 6 May 2014. We have submitted a response, which you can download here.