Are parents entitled to know what the SENDco availability is in their school?

[LemooonSlice]

Are parents entitled to ask/be told if a school has a part-time or full-time SENDco?

Entitled to ask. School can answer however they choose. Schools very rarely have a person who does the SENDCO job full time. Either it's shared with teaching or with another role eg. designated safeguarding lead / assistant head. The person being full time out of class doesn't necessarily mean that the school has prioritised SEND

Yes they can ask if they want to.
What's prompted your question, @LemooonSlice ?

School of 500 pupils, parents really having to push over several school years (eg since Y2, now end of year 5) to have their children assessed for things like dyslexia. Rumours going round that the SENDco is only part time and shared with another school (of 300 pupils). Wanted to ask school if this is correct and if so whether they would consider employing more staff as so many kids are struggling.

A new class for high need pupils was recently created which is highly staffed and resourced (as it should be) but it is upsetting for parents of children whose SEND needs are under the radar to wait so long without appropriate support. So want to find out what the facts are.

Its fine to ask. Im sure most would answer politely.

Its not information they have to publish though.

Im often very shocked at how few hours get allocated to the senco in many schools.

As someone else said, the number of hours the SENDco spends on the job may actually be more than if the SENDco is the full-time assistant head, or full-time but teaching a class on some days. Part-time vs full-time doesn't necessarily tell you much.

I'm sure the school would love to employ more staff to work on SENDco matters, but they have a budget to work with, and budgets are very tight. What would you like them to cut to pay for more SENDco hours? TA instead of teacher to cover the class teacher's non-contact time? Reduce the number of hours for which each class has a TA? Split the 75 kids in year 5 into two classes instead of three?

Most state schools won’t assess for dyslexia and in any case many children found to be dyslexic anre unlikely to get near the school’s EP if the child is Meeting Expectations. This is nothing to do with whether or not the SENCO is full- or part-time.

I assume the new class is an ELP for children with EHCPs, and children will be placed there directly by the local authority’s SEND. They really are likely to be highly needy.

A part-time SENCO for such a large school sounds like crap provision though, and you’ve nothing to lose by asking.

What do you think the parents gain from this knowledge? Do they think it’s in the parents remit to decide what the school budget gets spent on? They can’t demand that school suddenly find themselves a full time senco instead. There will be a very good reason why the senco role is ‘part time’. Having a member of staff that is only a senco and nothing else would be unusual.

A primary of that size will often have a senco who is given only a day a week (or even half a day) for the role.

Schools do not typically assess for dyslexia although they might have assessment tools that tell you if your child is 'at risk of dyslexia'. The checklist on the British Dyslexia Association website is about as useful and can be done in minutes. Schools should also generally be employing dyslexia friendly strategies for all pupils anyway so a diagnosis (which you'd need to pay for privately) doesn't change much.

The school have a process for parents to follow to ask for extra help in school, but it can take months or even years to move along. I don't have answers and don't want to make stupid suggestions. Hence wanting to ask the question, but I can see whether the staff are full or part time is maybe not so relevant.

As a secondary SENCo/Assistant Head in a small secondary, I was responsible for co-ordinating the provision for all the pupils with EHCPs, co-ordinating the provision for pupils without EHCPs, but varying levels of need, managing a team of TAs, LAC, safeguarding SiC and managing an on site unit. I also taught several lessons where there were timetable gaps.