SEND Tutoring talks to Lorna Woolley an Independent SEND Consultant

This week we spoke to Lorna Woolley who is an Independent SEND Consultant whose area of expertise lies in supporting families in finding the best match specialist provision school or college. She is passionate about children and young people with challenges reaching their full potential – socially, emotionally, and academically.

In today’s podcast, we talked about Educational Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and the needs assessment needed in order to get your child into a Specialist setting.

Section I of an EHCP asks for parental choice and that’s when Lorna’s expertise comes in. She finds the best possible setting for your child using the reports given by the Educational Psychologist, Speech and Language Therapist, and Occupational Therapist.

We discussed what reports are needed so that parents can gather the evidence needed to give to the Local Authority and then the subsequent information gathered that helps Lorna narrow the search in order to find the best possible setting for your child.

We sent her these four questions but didn’t have time for all four, although we managed to squeeze in her top tip 😉

• How do you go about placing a child in the right school?
• Do you give parents three or more recommendations?
• Do you visit the schools yourself?
• If you had to give one top tip, what would it be?

I anticipate that our listeners will have plenty of questions after this episode airs and Lorna has promised that she will come back and answer them.

Please contact Lorna for more advice at: [email protected]

If you have any questions on the topics discussed in this podcast, or are looking for help finding a specialist one-to-one tutor for your child, book a free consultation with us today, we’ll be happy to help.