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MHST - Helping your child with worries and fears workshop PP

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MHST - Helping your child with worries and fears workshop PP

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Home to School Transport - your questions answered

Norfolk County Council offers a range of home to school transport support for eligible children and families. Children aged five to 16 may be eligible for free transport if:

They attend the nearest suitable school and live beyond the statutory walking distance:

- two miles for children under eight

- three miles for children aged eight and over

They have SEND and require transport as part of their Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

The route to school is deemed unsafe to walk, even if within the statutory distance.

For students aged 16 and over attending sixth form or college:

Transport is not automatically free, but support may be available through a discretionary travel scheme

Families may need to contribute to costs, and eligibility depends on distance and course type.

Special arrangements are available for children and young people with SEND:

Including dedicated transport, personalised travel schemes and travel training

Families can opt for a Personal Travel Budget to arrange their own transport.

More information can be found on our webpages:

Transport for five to 16-year-olds

Students aged 16 and over attending sixth form or college

SEND school transport

We've also put together some answers to frequently asked questions about home to school transport. If you cannot find the answer to your question from these pages or our website, please contact us via our general enquiry form and we will get back to you.

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Norfolk & Waveney MHST supporting primary school children leaflet 

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What should I do if I have concerns about my child's development?

If you're worried about your child's progress, talk to your childminder/nursery/pre-school team, health visitor, local children's centre or Family Hub.

If your child has developmental delays or SEND (suspected or confirmed), speak to their nursery, childminder, or health visitor/nursery/pre-school team well before they start Reception and discuss their needs when you are selecting schools.

You can work with your child's early years setting to help your child with self-care, managing emotions, social skills and communication in a way that suits their stage of development.

​You might want to share details about: their development, needs, what motivates them, what might trigger difficulties, how they learn best, and what strategies work well.

Make sure you share important information with everyone supporting your child, including their new Reception teacher.

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Your child's journey to school starts at home. We understand that all children develop at their own pace, and that we're all learning from birth. When it's time to start school, some children will need more help than others.

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Speech and Language Service - family feedback survey

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Speech and Language Service - family feedback survey

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Speech and Language Service - family feedback survey

As part of our commitment to delivering high-quality services, we are reviewing the provision of Speech and Language Therapy. As families, we value your feedback and would love to hear about your experience of the local authority commissioned Speech and Language Service through Cambridgeshire Community Service (CCS).

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey below. Your responses will help us improve the support for families like yours. If you require this survey in another language, please contact emily.lown@norfolk.gov.uk. Please submit your response no later than Monday 2 June.

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Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers - Norfolk County Council

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Speech and Language Service Family Feedback Survey - Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers - Norfolk County Council

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A survey for colleagues to circulate with families for their response - the closing date is 5 June

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Helping your child with anxious feelings

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Helping your child with anxious feelings

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Ways to help your child if you can see they are feeling anxious.

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Books are a great resource from local libraries in Norfolk. They can help and support children and young people with SEND, whilst creating a safe space for family communication. There are many books that can support this. Below are a few examples, and you can discover even more for free, from your local library.

There are many books available in Norfolk Libraries with Dyslexia friendly fonts.

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website calendar events web calendars attractive

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Wed 26 Mar, 15:30 - 17:00 [GMT]: Come and meet Bella and Joanna, our Pets as Therapy Volunteer. Read to Bella (she loves a story!) and enjoy reading activities with Joanna. This is a free drop in event. Children remain the responsibi

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A guide to getting outside and making the most of nature - to support wellbeing!

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What is the Schools and Communities Team?

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What is the Schools and Communities Team?

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Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers - Norfolk County Council

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School & Community Teams - What are School & Community Teams? - Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers - Norfolk County Council

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MHST - Helping with Challenging Behaviour Parent Workshop

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MHST - Helping with Challenging Behaviour Parent Workshop

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We had Emily and Jo from the MHST in on Wednesday to support parents in 'Understanding Your Child's Emotions and Behaviours.'

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Understanding your childs emotions and behaviours updated (1)

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Introduction to Sensory Processing for Parents/Carers

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Introduction to Sensory Processing for Parents/Carers

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Introductory videos to sensory processing from Just One Norfolk.

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All of us have our own unique response to sensory stimuli that can vary from time to time. This might affect our participation in daily activities. A sensory enriched and adapted environment and opportunities for engagement in a variety of sensory activities supports children and young people's sensory regulation, self-esteem and well-being.

These video sessions are suitable for both parent/carers, school staff or other professionals with no previous knowledge or understanding of Sensory Processing / Sensory Integration issues.

The video session below is part one of a three part video series introducing sensory processing and sensory circuits in the home.

This session will cover

What do we mean by Sensory Processing difficulties?

Tour of the 8 sensory systems

Under and over sensitivity

How can you be a sensory detective?

Lynda Niles is an Independent Occupational Therapist providing highly specialist occupational therapy services for children, young people, and some adults.

Lynda qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 1987 and has worked in a variety of clinical and managerial roles within health, social care and community settings, moving to Norfolk in 1999 to work in a Child and Adult Mental Health service. From 2010 she set up an independent practice specialising in working with children and young people who have neurodevelopmental difficulties (such as ADHD, Dyspraxia, ASD and some learning difficulties etc.) and started her formal sensory Integration training in 2011.

Children's Occupational Therapists work with children from birth to 18 (or 19 if attending Complex Need schools). If your child or young person is under the Occupational Therapy teams, you can speak to them about any questions you may have.

If you think your child requires specialist support, please speak to their GP.

If you have any questions about your child or young person's general health or development, you can contact the Healthy Child Service team by calling Just One Number on 0300 300 0123 or texting Parentline on 07520 631590. Our opening hours are 8am-6pm Monday-Friday (excluding bank holidays) and 9am-1pm on Saturdays.

Brief recap on part 1

Active and passive responses to being under or over sensitive

Alertness levels - recognising the signs

Using sensory experiences to meet needs

What will you do to help meet sensory needs you detect?

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Introduction to Sensory Processing Part 1

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Find support from occupational therapists who support parents in helping their children with sensory processing. Visit Just One Norfolk to find out more.

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Our guide to the typical stages of speech and language development in babies, children and young people.

Children develop their talking and understanding of words at different rates. However, knowing what is typical can help you identify speech and language problems early.  You can also find out how to help your child learn to talk and understand words.

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Speech and Language UK: Changing young lives

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Sometimes sound as if they are stammering or stuttering. They are usually trying to share their ideas before their language skills are ready. This is perfectly normal at this age, just show you are listening and give them plenty of time. It's not helpful to draw attention to their 'stammering' by saying things like 'take your time'.

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Wensum Trust Speech and Language Therapist

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Wensum Trust Speech and Language Therapist

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Learn about our Speech and Language provision at Heather Avenue Infant School

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Introduction to Communicate Speech & Language Therapy at Heather Avenue

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Just One Norfolk support for Early Language Development

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Just One Norfolk support for Early Language Development

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Support and advice available from Just One Norfolk to support early language development

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Repeat and expand on what your child says to you. If they say 'juice' you can say 'more juice', 'juice please' or 'juice gone'. This shows your child how words can be put together to make short sentences.

Comment on and describing what they are doing during play in short sentences. For example, if your child is playing with a small world farm - you can say 'horse eating' 'pig rolling' 'pig all dirty'.

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Repeat and expand on what your child says to you. If they say 'juice' you can say 'more juice', 'juice please' or 'juice gone'. This shows your child how words can be put together to make short sentences. Comment on and describing what they are doing during play in short sentences.

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Free Speech and Language training videos

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Free Speech and Language training videos

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Free videos for supporting speech and language form the Speech Therapy Service at Just One Norfolk

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Here at Just One Norfolk, we are dedicated to providing children and young people's health services to the community. Find out more about our services

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A resource library with more information and activities to help support your child with their language development

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Resource library for families - Speech and Language UK: Changing young lives

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Our team of speech and language therapists have written these helpful info pages, based on our most frequently asked questions from families.

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You can contact our SENCO, Mrs Charlotte Waters on 01603 426438 or on senco@heatheravenue.norfolk.sch.uk

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Visual of the hand-brain model showing the meaning of 'Flipping Your Lid'

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Visuals illustrating the Emotion Coaching process

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Interventions and support offered by the MHST for parents

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Interventions Poster for Primary Schools

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A guide for families to the 7Cs Learning Portfolio taken from Judith Carter's book "SEND Assessment—A strengths based approach"

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Information on NDS waiting list validation Version 1-1 26 March 2025

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Contact Norfolk SENDIASS for free and impartial advice, information and support about SEND for children, young people, parents and carers.

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Welcome to Norfolk SEND Partnership. Norfolk SEND Partnership offer information and advice to children, young people and parents/carers about special

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An explanation of the Local Offer in Norfolk

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The special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) Local Offer is what is available in Norfolk for children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 and those who support them.

SEND = Special educational needs and/or disabilities

Local = In Norfolk

Offer = What is available

We want to ensure that SEND services and support is what families in Norfolk need and want.

We want to work together with families and professionals to review and develop what is available.

How to use the SEND Local Offer

Find clear, easy-to-understand and up-to-date information about SEND services and support in Norfolk on this SEND Local Offer website.

The SEND Local Offer website also links to the Norfolk Community Directory. You can use the directory to find local organisations, groups, services and events.

The information on both these websites is for parents and carers, children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 and professionals within health, social care and education services.

We also manage and maintain the Norfolk Schools and Learning Providers website. This website is for education professionals in Norfolk. It contains information, guidance and resources specifically for those who work in a place of learning.

Other SEND Local Offers near Norfolk

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what is the norfolk send local offer? norfolk send local offer definition

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What is the Norfolk SEND Local Offer - Norfolk County Council

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What the SEND Local Offer is, who it is for and where to find information about the SEND Local Offer in Norfolk

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A video introduction to The Norfolk Local Offer for children and young people with SEND

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This website is for anyone in the life of a child or young person aged 0-25 who has a special educational need and/or disability (SEND) in Norfolk.

The website can help you:

Find information on support in education

Learn about special needs services that can help children, young people and their families

Find a support network - parents, groups and organisations

Get guidance and advice about how to help a young person plan their adult life

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SEND Local Offer - Norfolk County Council

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Our school website has a dedicated page for SEND with lots of information and links. Click the link to view the website.

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View our SEN Report 2022-23

You have not allowed cookies and this content may contain cookies.

If you would like to view this content please Allow Cookies Cookie Settings

Useful Links

To view any of our other policies, including Complaints, Equality, Supporting Children with Medical Conditions and Teaching & Learning policies, please visit the Our Policy section of this website.

Contact Details for Mrs Stevens our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator: 01603 426438 or senco@heatheravenue.norfolk.sch.uk (available Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)

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View our SEN Report 2022-23 You have not allowed cookies and this content may contain cookies. If you would like to view this content please Allow Cookies Cookie Settings To view any of our other policies, including Complaints, Equality, Supporting Children with Medical Conditions and Teaching & Learning policies, please visit the Our Policy section of this website.

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What are Norfolk's priorities for SEND provision?

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Local First Inclusion is the county council's six-year special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) improvement programme.

It aims to enable all children and young people with SEND to get a consistently high-quality education with the right support for their needs in their local area first.

We want them to be able to flourish, whether that's in a special school or in well-supported provision in the mainstream and provide help and support to meet needs earlier.

The programme builds on our successful £120m five-year SEND transformation programme which ran from 2018 to 2022, which has already created more than 650 new specialist education places by:

Creating new specialist resource bases (SRBs) at mainstream schools and expanded existing ones

Building three new specialist schools

Expanding existing special schools

Giving more support to mainstream schools to help them identify and meet the needs of children with special educational needs and/or disability (SEND)

Local First Inclusion will bring more than £100m of new investment by the Department for Education (DfE) and Norfolk County Council. It aligns with the Government's recently announced SEND improvement plans.

Local First Inclusion will provide:

More advice, support and funding for mainstream schools

Introduce 15 new school and community support teams, the first of which aim to be in place by September 2023. This is to give early help and support to both parents and schools.

More specialist resource bases (SRBs) and alternative provision at mainstream secondary schools

Two more new-build special schools

Visit the GOV.UK website for further information about the dedicated schools grant.

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local first inclusion improvement programme

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Local first inclusion improvement programme - Norfolk County Council

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Find out more about Norfolk County Council's £120m investment to transform special needs education in Norfolk

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'Mind's' Five Ways to Wellbeing guide.

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Example of Blank levelled questions from level 1 to level 4.

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Our picture guide to the 7Cs for children

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Before school starts in September you can come up with plan, so that your child can see when school will begin. Plan some school themed activities leading up to school started e.g. buying uniform, reading a school book etc. You can also plan in some nice activities, e.g. going to the park, seeing some friends.

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Speech and Language UK guide to common concerns about early language acquisition

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Speech and Language UK: Changing young lives

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Skip to content

Learn more about the signs and symptoms children struggling with talking and understanding words may experience.

This page gives a guide for parents/carers of some possible signs and symptoms of speech and language challenges in children. However, not all children who show these signs will have speech and language challenges.
For more information, have a look at:

Children and young people who have challenges with talking and understanding words may experience difficulties in any of the areas described below.

Understanding means how children understand and make sense of words and sentences that people say to them. This is also sometimes called 'receptive language'. Children learn to understand words and sentences gradually over time.

Children can have challenges with the following skills that are related to understanding:

Listening, paying attention to and remembering what people say.

Learning and remembering new words.

Understanding different sentences, particularly longer or more complicated sentences.

Understanding grammar such as word endings (e.g. words with '-ed' on the end mean something happened in the past).

Making sense of 'hidden meanings'.

Children who have difficulties understanding may find some of the following things tricky:

Following requests you give them. They might seem to ignore you, or they might follow only part of the instruction and 'forget' the rest.

Listening and paying attention, for example they might find it hard to share a whole book with you or they might seem to 'tune out' while you're talking to them.

Answering questions you ask them. They might seem to ignore you or they might give an answer that doesn't make sense.

As they get older, children might find it hard to understand terms of phrase such as 'pull your socks up' or 'get a wriggle on'. They might also find it hard to follow jokes and slang.

Staying calm - it can be frustrating, confusing and stressful when you don't understand what people are saying.

Signs to look out for depend on the age of your child. Have a look at our Ages and Stages page for a guide to typical development and some things to look out for at different ages.

Talking means the words, phrases and sentences that children say. This is sometimes called 'expressive language'. Expressive language skills don't just include talking - children who use sign language or communicate using a communication device (sometimes called Augmentative and Alternative Communication, or AAC) still use their expressive language skills.

Children can have challenges with the following skills that are related to talking or expressive language:

Learning and using new words.

Putting words together in the right order in sentences.

Using all the important words in a sentence, including little words like 'a' and 'is', and the correct grammar and word endings.

Putting sentences together in a longer story in a way that is easy to follow and understand.

Children who have challenges with talking might find the following things tricky:

Being able to tell you what they want or need.

Telling you about something they have done in a way that you can follow and understand.

Telling you how they are feeling and why.

Having a conversation.

Signs to look out for depend on the age of your child. Have a look at our Ages and Stages section for a guide to typical development and some things to look out for at different ages.

means how children say the sounds in words. peech sounds are the sounds we use for talking. As children learn to talk, they gradually learn to make more and more speech sounds. It's normal for children to make some mistakes with speech sounds when they are young. By five or six years old, most children are easy to understand and they can say nearly all speech sounds clearly.

Children can have difficulties with speech sounds for a number of different reasons. Their difficulties can be linked to:

Challenges with other communication skills, for example, challenges with talking and understanding words.

Challenges with hearing, including glue ear.

Having a physical condition that affects speech, such as cleft palate.

Having another condition like Cerebral Palsy or Down's syndrome can sometimes affect the muscles involved in speech.

Having a 'family history' of speech difficulties - other family members who needed help with their speech sounds.

A speech and language therapist might use different terms to refer to children's difficulties with speech, such as 'phonological difficulties', 'phonological disorder', 'speech sound disorder', ' apraxia of speech ' or 'dyspraxia'.

Children who have difficulties with speech sounds may struggle with:

Saying what they want or need in a way that others can understand.

Staying calm - some children get very frustrated when others can't understand them.

As they get older, children might struggle with learning to read and write.

Signs to look out for depend on the age of your child. For more information about typical development of speech sounds and what to look out for, have a look at our factsheet here.

Many children go through a phase where they struggle to talk 'smoothly' or fluently when they are little. This is sometimes called 'stammering' or 'stuttering'. Stammering often begins between the ages of two and five, when children are starting to talk using more words and longer sentences.

Stammering is when a child, young person or adult talks in the following ways:

They get stuck trying to say a word: 'I want some... juice'

They stretch sounds in words: 'Can I have a ssssstory?'?

They repeat sounds in words or parts of the word: Mu-mu-mu-mummy

They repeat whole words: 'Where where where are we going?'

They may try to stop or hide their stammer by tensing their body or holding their breath.

For most children, their stammers go away in time. Some children continue to stammer throughout childhood and into adulthood.

Some families feel concerned when their child starts to stammer and want to help their child. Some families and some adults who stammer take pride in their stammering and see it as part of what makes them unique.
More information and advice can be found in our factsheet on stammering here.

Social communication means the skills children use to be social with others. These are also sometimes called 'social skills' or 'social interaction skills. These skills start to develop from a very young age and continue developing all throughout childhood and into adulthood. We use these skills to build friendships and relationships with others.

Social communication skills include things like:

Using actions and gestures such as pointing, waving to say 'hello' or shrugging your shoulders to indicate you don't know something.

Showing an awareness of and interest in other people.

Using facial expressions to show how you are feeling and noticing the facial expressions of others.

Starting and keeping conversations going.

Responding to conversations started by others and joining in with interest.

Taking turns in conversations and play.

Social communication skills vary across different cultures and groups of people. We now know that there is no one set of 'typical' social communication skills - people may show differences in these skills based on a number of factors. For example, different cultures vary in what is considered 'typical' social communication. Children who are 'neurodivergent' (meaning they learn in a different way to what is considered typical) may have differences in their social communication skills.

Have a look at our Ages and Stages section for some more information about development of social communication skills at different ages and some things to look out for at different ages.

Our progress checker is based on what we know about how babies and children develop skills. Choose the age of the child and then answer the questions. At the end, we will direct you to some helpful advice and resources.

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Signs and symptoms - Speech and Language UK: Changing young lives

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Signs and symptoms - Speech and Language UK: Changing young lives