The local education authority or department

The support services within an authority may include the following specialists:

■ cognition and learning teachers;

■ educational psychologists (EP);

■ behavior teachers;

■ early years advisory teachers;

■ Visual/hearing/language impairment support;

■ Pre-school SEN teachers;

■ SEN Assessment Officers;

■ Inclusion Officers;

■ early years SENCOs.

The support staff listed above will generally all be experienced teachers and may have further qualifications within their specialist field. They all have very different roles, but within their specific area of provision they may do the following:

■ offer staff training;

■ give practical support to the class teacher or directly teach a group of pupils;

■ provide additional specialist assessment;

■ either provide or offer advice regarding suitable specialist resources or provision;

■ act in an advisory capacity to a school;

■ support referrals/complete written reports.