How personalised plans can support students waiting for a diagnosis at school
Published on 27 June 2025
Author: Rachel Berry and Cate Marsden
The Specialist SEND Teacher, Rachel Berry, and Director of External Partnerships, Cate Marsden, at Woodbridge Trust discuss how tailored plans are key in helping students waiting for a SEND assessment.
As anyone who has worked in a school will know, the number of children with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan has soared in the last decade.
Often less reported is the fact that many, many more children are still waiting for an assessment. As a result, these children may not be getting the support they need, and certain aspects of the school day will be hard for them to navigate.
Schools can be noisy places, with confusing rules, changing routines and lots of other children to interact with. If an autistic child or a child with different needs has to wait a year or two (often more) for an assessment, this represents a lot of lost time before they get structured help. This gap could make a big difference to how they feel about school and the impact on their longer-term educational outcomes.
This educational support gap is why, as a specialist SEND team, we focus a lot of our efforts on supporting teachers and providing early help to the 120 schools we work with.
Our role is to partner with teachers and families and look at things like sensory needs, learning, behaviour and social and emotional requirements to make a tailored plan that’s fit for each child.
The impact of this work in many cases is significant, with many children finding school easier to manage, improving both their behaviour and learning. Some children no longer need an EHC plan following the interventions.
Here are just some of the things we do.
1. Behaviour is communication
We believe that all behaviour is communication. So, if a child appears not to be listening to a teacher, we dig deep and ask questions about why a child behaves in a certain way.
We had a year-one pupil who often ran onto the field to play on days when it wasn’t allowed – for example, if the grass was muddy and slippery. Once he was on the field, it was hard to encourage him back onto the playground.
When we spoke to the pupil, it became clear that he didn’t understand that the playground and the field were two separate spaces. For him, outside was outside, and there was no boundary between them. Knowing this, his behaviour now made sense to all the professionals involved.
We’ve learned that when we see behaviours like this, we can seek strategies to help the child understand the boundaries in a way that works for them. We like to use stories and roleplay to help a child to recognise the difference between what they’re currently doing and what we would like them to do.
In our case, we created stories with photos of the school’s outside area and roleplayed where he was allowed to play. This helped him to understand that there was a boundary between the playground and the grassy area so he could enjoy time outside and feel confident about where he could play.
2. Personalised and flexible support
We also believe that what works for one child will not necessarily work for another. You may have two children in the same class awaiting an autism assessment, but one pupil will like a structured routine, and another will find it too restrictive.
A good example of this is in how we use visual timetables. Many teachers are familiar with these, and they are a great way to help autistic children make sense of their school environment.
We create ours using Widgit Software, which features clear, consistent symbols for activities like maths, PE or break time. These symbols are especially helpful for children with communication or processing difficulties, as they make abstract concepts more accessible and reduce the cognitive load. These tools are most effective when tailored to the individual needs of each child.
Some children benefit from a full visual timetable of school subjects, including symbols for geography or science alongside the written word. They are more confident when they know what to expect from their day, reducing anxiety about what is going to happen next.
For other children, seeing the whole day can be overwhelming, especially if it feels imposed on them without their say. These students often prefer shorter, more manageable timetables with a choice of activities, such as one timetable for the morning until break time, another leading up to lunch and a third for the afternoon.
Tailoring support in this way, although time-consuming at first, is worth the effort as it means students feel confident at school and ready to learn.
3. Involve students
We are big advocates for giving children a voice over their school routine and environment; this means finding ways for children to express their feelings, including when they speak few or no words or simply cannot find the words to explain how they feel.
A pre-verbal child at one of the settings we worked with didn’t want to join any outdoor learning sessions but couldn’t explain why. We needed to work out why he was afraid to be outside, so we showed the child a board containing symbols of everyday words. This enabled him to tell us he didn’t like the flags in the playground.
Once we had taken the flags down, the pupil was happy to come outside again.
When children can make their needs and views understood and have a say over how their school day is, they feel a stronger sense of belonging, which leads to a happier, more fulfilling time at school.
You don’t need a formal diagnosis to make a difference in a child’s school experience. A personalised plan means creating an environment where every child is welcomed, valued and able to thrive, regardless of their needs or abilities.