SENCO role and qualifications
What the law says about the SEN co-ordinator: who must appoint one, who may be one, and the qualification that follows.
What does SENCO mean?
SENCO stands for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator. The Children and Families Act 2014 calls the role the SEN co-ordinator: a member of staff the school designates as having responsibility for co-ordinating provision for pupils with special educational needs.
How do you become a SENCO?
The school's governing body, or the proprietor of an academy, designates the SENCO. The person must be a qualified teacher working at the school, or the head teacher or acting head, and — if they became a SENCO after 1 September 2009 — must hold the relevant SENCO qualification once they have been in the role for three years. The questions below set out each part.
Must every school have a SENCO?
Every mainstream school and maintained nursery school in England. Children and Families Act 2014 s.67(2) requires the appropriate authority to designate a member of staff at the school, known as the SEN co-ordinator, as having responsibility for co-ordinating the provision for pupils with special educational needs. The appropriate authority is the governing body of a maintained school and the proprietor of an academy (s.67(4)).
Who can be the SENCO?
SEND Regulations 2014 reg 49 sets two routes. Under paragraph (2), the SENCO is a qualified teacher who has completed any induction period required of them and is working as a teacher at the school. Under paragraph (3), the SENCO is the head teacher or acting head teacher of the school, or the equivalent in an academy.
What qualifications do you need to be a SENCO, and by when?
Under reg 49(4), a person who became a SENCO after 1 September 2009, and had not previously been a SENCO at a relevant school for more than twelve months in total, must hold the relevant SENCO qualification if they are still the SENCO after the third anniversary of becoming one. The regulation sets that check at the third anniversary rather than describing a course length.
Is it the National Award or the NPQ?
It depends on when the course began. Since 1 September 2024, reg 49(7) defines the relevant qualification as the National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-ordination for a course started before 1 September 2024 and completed before 1 September 2027, and as the National Professional Qualification for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators for a course started on or after 1 September 2024. The change was made by S.I. 2024/535.
Who decides what the SENCO does?
The school. Reg 50(1) requires the appropriate authority to determine the SENCO's role in relation to the leadership and management of the school, and reg 50(2) to determine the SENCO's functions and monitor how they are carried out. Reg 50(3) lists tasks those functions may include, such as advising teachers and selecting and training learning support assistants. The list is permissive, so the school's own written role description is what governs.
Striova keeps a school's SEN register, its graduated-approach cycles and its costed provision in one place, and prints the support plan on Birmingham's, Warwickshire's or Coventry's layout, and under the Code's headings for every other authority.
General information about the SEND system in England, not legal advice, and not advice about provision for any individual pupil. Where a page names a regulation or a paragraph of the SEND Code of Practice, read it alongside the source.