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SEND vocabulary is written by professionals, for professionals. This translates the terms parents hear most often into plain language, worth bookmarking for the next time you're drafting a letter or prepping for a meeting.
A legal document setting out a child's needs and the support they're entitled to.
Not every child with SEND has one, it's for more complex, long-term needs.
A yearly meeting to check an EHCP still fits the child and update it if not.
Parents, the school, and sometimes external professionals attend together.
The step-by-step way schools identify and increase support as a need becomes clearer.
Concern noticed → SENCO review → targeted support → formal assessment if needed.
Support given in school without a formal EHCP, the first level of the graduated response.
Most children with SEND are at this stage, not the EHCP stage.
A specialist who assesses and supports communication, speech, and swallowing needs.
Might work with a child on building sentences or understanding instructions.
A specialist who supports physical, sensory, and daily-living skills.
Might help with handwriting grip, or managing sensory overload.
A specialist who assesses learning, thinking, and emotional needs.
Often involved before a formal EHCP needs assessment is requested.
An adult helping a child manage big emotions by staying calm alongside them.
Not the same as punishment or a consequence, it's support in the moment.
The specific, measurable way progress toward a target will be judged.
“8 out of 10 times, observed weekly” is a progress criterion. “Getting better” isn't.
A child who is both gifted in some areas and has a SEND need in others.
Can be missed because the giftedness masks the need, or vice versa.
A category of need relating to emotional regulation, relationships, and mental health.
Can present as behaviour that looks like defiance but has an emotional root.
A lifelong difference in how someone processes the world, communicates, and interacts socially.
A spectrum means it looks different in every individual child.
The ability to hold and use information for a short time while doing a task.
A child might understand a 3-step instruction but forget step one by step three.
How quickly someone can take in, understand, and respond to information.
Not the same as intelligence, a child can be bright and still need more time.
A change a school makes so a child with a need isn't disadvantaged.
Extra time, a quieter room, or a modified task are common examples.
A formal, agreed adjustment for exams and formal assessments specifically.
Extra time or a reader, applied for and evidenced ahead of the exam.
A single-page summary of a child's strengths, needs, and strategies that work.
Designed to be read in under two minutes by any teacher, any day.
An overview of what support is running, for whom, delivered by whom.
Shows the whole picture of SEND provision across a school or year group.
The formal legal process a local authority follows to decide if a child needs an EHCP.
Can be requested by a school or a parent, and has legal timescales attached.
Adjusting how something is taught or presented to fit how a specific child learns.
Same learning goal, different route to get there.
Every plan a parent sees in OMNIA's Parent Portal comes with plain-language explanations built in, in 24 languages, so this translation happens automatically, not just for the terms listed here.
See the Parent Portal →