SEN support

The SEND register: who goes on it, what to record and how to keep it accurate

A register that answers the questions governors, inspectors and the local authority actually ask, and that feeds the graduated approach rather than sitting beside it.

Reading time: 5 min read
Last reviewed: 5 October 2026

Is a register required?

No law uses the phrase “SEN register”, but the duties that make one necessary are clear. Schools must use their best endeavours to secure the special educational provision their pupils’ needs call for (Children and Families Act 2014, section 66). The SEND Code of Practice says the provision made for pupils with special educational needs should be recorded accurately and kept up to date (6.72 to 6.73). Governing bodies must publish an SEN information report (6.79). And every school returns each pupil’s SEN status and primary type of need in the school census. A register is simply the list that lets a school do all of that consistently.

For the SENCO (or SENDCo), the register is also the caseload: the document that says who you are responsible for, what their needs are, and when the next review is due.

Who should be on it

The legal definition is the test. A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them, and special educational provision is provision additional to or different from that made generally for others of the same age (Children and Families Act 2014, sections 20 and 21; Code of Practice introduction, xiii to xv). Pupils receiving such provision are recorded at one of two census statuses:

E: the pupil has an education, health and care (EHC) plan.
K: the pupil is on SEN support.

Pupils with no special educational needs are recorded as N. Many schools also keep an internal monitoring list of pupils causing concern who are not yet receiving additional or different provision. That list is useful, but it is not part of the register and should not be returned as K. Equally, a pupil receiving a sustained intervention that is additional to or different from the norm belongs on the register whether or not they have a diagnosis.

Slow progress and low attainment on their own do not necessarily mean a pupil has special educational needs (Code of Practice 6.23), and difficulties related solely to English as an additional language are not special educational needs (6.24). A disability or medical condition is a special educational need only where it calls for special educational provision (section 20 of the Act). All three can coexist with special educational needs, which is why the register records the need, not the label.

What to record for each pupil

Core fields for a working SEND register.
Field	Notes
Pupil identifiers	Name, UPN, date of birth, year group and class. Keep names out of filenames and email subjects.
SEN status	E or K, with the date the status started and, for E, the date of the plan and the local authority that maintains it.
Primary and secondary area of need	Using the census type-of-need codes; review at each cycle.
Current provision	Summary of what is additional to or different from the norm, linked to the SEN support plan or Section F.
Key dates	Next SEN support review; annual review due date (the annual review planner gives it from the plan date); EHC needs assessment request date and 20-week deadline if one is in progress (see EHCP timescales).
External involvement	Which services are involved and the date of their last report.
Parental engagement	Date parents were told SEN support had started and date of the last meeting.
Safeguarding and health flags	Only what staff need to know to keep the pupil safe, with a pointer to the fuller record.

Resist the urge to add every detail to the register. The register is the index; the pupil’s record, with its assess, plan, do, review cycles, is where the evidence lives. See SEN support and the graduated approach for what that record should hold.

Keeping it accurate

Review the whole register once a term, alongside the SEN support review cycle, and record the date you did it.
Define an exit route. A pupil who no longer needs additional or different provision should come off SEN support, with the parents told and the reason recorded; a register that only ever grows is not being reviewed.
Reconcile with the management information system before each census. The status and type-of-need codes in the MIS are what the DfE sees, and the two lists drift apart within a term if nobody checks.
Keep a change log: who added or removed a pupil, when and why. It answers most questions from governors and inspectors in seconds.
Share a read-only, names-only version with teaching staff so everyone knows who they are planning for, and keep the fuller fields restricted.

Questions the register should be able to answer

How many pupils are at E and at K, and how does that compare with the national 6.0% and 14.8% in 2025/26?
Which annual reviews are due this term, and which are overdue?
Which EHC needs assessments are in progress, and where is each against the 20-week limit?
Which SEN support plans have not been reviewed in the last term?
Which pupils have had no contact with an external service in the last year despite a need that would normally involve one?
How is the primary type of need distributed, and is staff training matched to it?

If the register cannot answer these without manual counting, it is a list, not a tool. Ofsted’s framework from November 2025 grades inclusion as a standalone area, and these are the questions a school should expect to be asked about it, by inspectors, by governors and by a local authority officer at a monitoring visit.

Data protection

A SEND register contains special category data. Keep it in a system with access limited to staff who need it, avoid emailing it as an attachment, never put pupil names in filenames or subject lines, and make sure the school’s privacy notice covers SEN processing. The school is the data controller; any software supplier is a processor and should offer a data processing agreement that says so. The DfE’s data protection in schools guidance sets out what to check when procuring a system.

Spreadsheet or system?

A spreadsheet works for a small register maintained by one person. It stops working when more than one person edits it, when dates need chasing, or when the register must link to review records, communication logs and evidence. At that point the hours spent maintaining the spreadsheet are hours not spent with pupils, which is the trade-off the 2020 Bath Spa and nasen workload survey describes: 74% of SENCOs say administration takes up most of their SENCO time. Sendiphany keeps the register as the live list of pupils with their status, primary need, key dates and flags, and connects each entry to the pupil’s deadlines, communications, targets, documents and contributions.

Sources

Last reviewed 5 October 2026. This guide summarises legislation and guidance for school staff in England. It is not legal advice; check the current text of the regulations before relying on a date in correspondence.