To ask the Secretary of State for Education whether the new Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice will include a child's right to a named and trained senior person in each school responsible for SEN.

holding answer 18 July 2011

The current Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice sets out the role of the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO), who has day-to-day responsibility for the co-ordination of provision made for individual children with SEN and can provide advice to those children. Every local authority maintained mainstream school and every new mainstream academy, following the Academies Act 2010, must appoint a SENCO and that SENCO must be a qualified teacher. The current code points out that many schools find it effective for the SENCO to be a member of the senior leadership team.

In any revision of the code of practice following the SEN and disability Green Paper we will consider whether to say more about the support SENCOs can give to individual children as well as their colleagues in meeting those children's SEN.