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Special educational needs in Norfolk schools: EHCPs, specialist provision and the Local Offer
How the SEND system works in Norfolk. EHCPs, specialist schools, the Local Offer, SENDIASS. A plain-English guide for parents moving to the county.
Nothing shapes a family move to Norfolk harder than the answer to one question: will my child get the support they need? If you are moving with a child who has, or is likely to need, an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), or who is already on SEN Support at their current school, the system in Norfolk is organised the same way as everywhere else in England. What varies is the local provision, the waiting times, and the parts that are easier or harder to navigate from a cold start.
This guide is for parents and carers thinking about Norfolk and wondering what SEND provision actually looks like here. It is not a legal advice document. The authoritative source for your family’s situation is the Norfolk SEND Local Offer, and if you want someone on your side who does not work for the council, that is what Norfolk SENDIASS is for.
How the system works, in plain English
Every local authority in England has to publish a Local Offer: a single place that sets out the education, health and social care support available for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, from birth to age 25. That duty comes from Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Norfolk’s version is the SEND Local Offer.
Support sits on two levels. Most children with SEND get help through SEN Support: the school identifies a need, puts a plan in place, reviews it termly, and funds it from its own budget. The teacher is the first port of call, with the school’s Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) overseeing it.
A smaller group needs more than the school can deliver on its own. For them, parents, the young person themselves (if 16 or over), or the school can ask the council to carry out an Education, Health and Care needs assessment. If the assessment finds the child needs provision beyond what mainstream can reasonably provide, the council issues an EHCP: a legal document naming the needs, the provision that must be put in place, and the school. The council has to secure the provision in the plan. The plan is reviewed every year.
Across England, 6.0% of pupils now have an EHCP and 14.8% are on SEN Support, as of the 2025/26 school census (DfE 2025/26 release). Both numbers have risen each year for most of the last decade. Autism is the most common primary need recorded on an EHCP, followed by speech, language and communication needs.
Asking for an EHC assessment in Norfolk
You do not have to wait for a school to request an assessment. A parent can ask directly, in writing, to Norfolk County Council. The legal test the council has to apply is in section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014: whether the child may have special educational needs, and whether it may be necessary to make special educational provision through an EHCP.
The statutory timescale for the whole process, from the day the council gets the request to the day the final plan is issued, is 20 weeks. That is national law, not a Norfolk target.
Across England in the 2025 calendar year, 46.1% of new plans were issued within 20 weeks, excluding cases where lawful exceptions apply (DfE). Norfolk’s own figure sits in the same DfE dataset, by local authority. Timeliness was one of three weaknesses that Ofsted and CQC flagged in Norfolk’s 2020 area SEND inspection, and when inspectors revisited in November 2022, with the outcome letter published in February 2023, they judged the council and the then Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board had made sufficient progress on it. The county is due a full area SEND and alternative provision inspection in the current academic year under the newer framework; the council has signalled it is on the horizon.
If the council refuses to assess, you can appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (First-tier Tribunal). You can also use mediation first; the council has to tell you about it when it refuses. Both routes are free to use.
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What the Local Offer actually covers
Norfolk’s Local Offer runs much wider than EHCPs. It covers:
- Early years: what to do if you have concerns before your child starts school, the role of Health Visitors and the Early Help offer, and how funded childcare interacts with SEND.
- Mainstream schools: the SEN Support process, Specialist Resource Bases (SRBs) attached to mainstream schools, and how to find schools that have one.
- Specialist provision: Norfolk’s maintained and academy special schools, the Short Stay Schools (pupil referral units), and the role of alternative provision.
- Health: how to get a neurodevelopmental assessment (for autism or ADHD), speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and child and adolescent mental health services.
- Social care: short breaks, direct payments, and the Local Offer for care leavers.
- Preparing for adulthood: post-16 options, supported internships, independent living and the SEND Code of Practice duties up to age 25.
If you are moving and want a single starting point, the Local Offer front page is it. It is better than any guide including this one for things that update regularly, like contact numbers, forms and current waiting-time estimates.
Where specialist provision is in Norfolk
Norfolk runs a mix of maintained special schools and special academies, grouped roughly by the type of need they are set up to meet: communication and interaction (including autism), social, emotional and mental health (SEMH), cognition and learning, and sensory or physical. The Local Offer directory is the right place to look for the full current list, because the picture is actively changing.
Two schools opened under the Department for Education’s Free Schools Programme in recent years: Bure Park Specialist Academy in Great Yarmouth for children with SEMH needs, and Duke of Lancaster Academy in Fakenham for children with autism. Both have been open for several years.
The council is also building two further special schools under its own capital programme. One is proposed at Downham Market, with around 100 places for children aged five to 18 with communication and interaction needs, and the other at Great Yarmouth, with around 170 places for children aged three to 19 with complex needs. Both were originally targeted to open in September 2026; the opening dates have since been pushed back, with the latest public target now 2027.
At mainstream level, the council’s current SEND Local Reform Plan, published in June 2026, commits to 16 new SEMH bases and centres and roughly doubling the number of Specialist Resource Bases in mainstream schools by 2028, alongside more ambitious waiting-time targets on the neurodevelopmental assessment pathway.
Whether any of this helps your specific child in a specific town depends on the plan’s named provision for them, where places are available in a given year, and what the admissions picture looks like in that area. If you are moving, the honest answer is: ring Norfolk SENDIASS before you commit to a town, especially if your child has an EHCP that names a current school. A plan is portable in law, but which Norfolk school ends up named on it is a conversation, not a given.
SENDIASS, Family Voice, and the parent side of the system
Three organisations do work that is separate from, or at arm’s length from, the council. If you only remember one of them, make it the first.
Norfolk SENDIASS (Norfolk SEND Partnership) is the Information, Advice and Support Service for SEND. It is free, impartial, and confidential, and it exists specifically because the council cannot both apply the law and advise you on how to challenge it. SENDIASS can help you understand the EHCP process, prepare for annual reviews, write a letter requesting an assessment, go to meetings with you, and talk you through mediation and tribunal routes. The phone line is 01603 704070.
Family Voice Norfolk is the county’s parent carer forum. It is run by parents and carers of children and young people with SEND and feeds parent views into the council and the NHS. Joining is free. If you want to know what SEND feels like from inside a Norfolk family right now, their events and surveys are a better read than any council newsletter.
The Norfolk and Suffolk Integrated Care Board is the NHS side. It commissions the therapies and the neurodevelopmental assessment pathway you may need alongside education support. Since 1 April 2026 it has run as one single ICB across both counties; before that there were two.
Common questions parents moving to Norfolk ask
We have an EHCP from another local authority. Does it transfer? Yes. An EHCP travels with the child. Norfolk has to maintain the plan from the day you move into the county. The new local authority has to review it within three months of the transfer, or within 12 months of the last review, whichever is later. The named school on the plan is likely to need updating; that is a formal change, not a casual one.
Can I get my child into a Norfolk special school if they do not have an EHCP? No. A place at a maintained special school or special academy is only secured through an EHCP that names that school. If you believe your child needs that level of provision, the route is a needs assessment, not an application.
Is SEN Support in Norfolk mainstream schools any good? Variable, like everywhere else in England. The strongest signal is how a particular school talks about its SEND offer when you visit, whether it has a SENCo you meet rather than hear about, and whether it has a Specialist Resource Base attached. Ofsted inspection reports from 2024 onwards comment specifically on inclusion.
What about autism assessment waiting times? Norfolk is open about the backlog. The council’s three-year reform plan commits to shorter neurodevelopmental assessment waits, and locally reported waits of a year or more have been widely discussed for the last two years. If you need a formal diagnosis quickly, a private assessment is an option but it does not override the NHS pathway for school support.
Who pays for school transport if my child has an EHCP? The council does, where the named school is the nearest suitable one and the child cannot reasonably walk. Transport is set out in the plan. It is not an automatic right at the parent’s chosen school.
What if we need to appeal? Mediation first, then the SEND Tribunal. Both are free; you do not need a lawyer, though some families use one. SENDIASS can walk you through it.
If you are moving, do this first
If a child has, or might need, an EHCP, three things matter more than which Norfolk town you pick:
- Read the Local Offer for the age and type of need you are planning for. Not the whole thing, just the two or three pages that match your situation.
- Phone Norfolk SENDIASS on 01603 704070 before you narrow down a town, especially if your child’s plan names a specific current school. They will tell you what the picture looks like in each part of the county without a sales pitch.
- If you are already in the system elsewhere, ask the losing local authority to send the plan to Norfolk the day you move. Keep a copy. The three-month review clock starts on arrival.
Norfolk is honest about where it is in its SEND reform. The 2023 Ofsted and CQC revisit judged sufficient progress on three weaknesses; a new area inspection is due this academic year; and the council’s own three-year plan concedes that the system still needs to do more. For families, the most useful summary is that Norfolk is neither the best nor the worst place in England to raise a child with additional needs, and that the parts of the system that are good, like mainstream SRBs in some areas, Family Voice Norfolk, and a long-running SENDIASS, are good because of specific people and local structures, not because the county has solved anything that the rest of the country has not.
If you want more detail on how admissions and catchments work in Norfolk, our primary school admissions guide and our secondary schools guide both cover the mainstream side. For a wider view of what the move itself involves, start with the methodology page and go from there.
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