Sheffield Support Grid

The Sheffield Support Grid (SSG) is a guidance document for school staff and other professionals. It is intended to help schools give support to learners with additional needs. It helps support learners in a fair, consistent and clear way.

There are currently three versions of the SSG:

See our flowcharts in the Links and documents section of this page. This is on the right-hand side of this page if you are on a computer or tablet. On a mobile phone these will show at the bottom. These explain what the Sheffield Support Grid is and how it is used.

5 cartoon characters, one is in a wheelchair

Who has produced it, and why?

The Sheffield Support Grid (SSG) was first written in 2018 by Citywide SENCO's in Sheffield. In 2025, the same team, now called SEND Strategic Leads, updated it.

Many different professionals helped make this new version, including:

Educational Psychologists (they help with learning and behaviour)
Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists (they help with movement and everyday tasks)
d/Deaf Hearing and Vision Support Service (they help children who have difficulty hearing or seeing)
Speech and Language Therapists (they help with talking and understanding)
The Autism Social Communication Education and Training Service Team (ASCETS)

The SSG helps adults understand what children and young people need to learn and feel supported. It gives advice on how to teach them well and what changes or extra help might be useful.

It shows which outside services can help. It says what paperwork is needed to support the assess-plan-do-review cycle.

The goal of the SSG is to make sure all children with similar needs get the same kind of help, no matter which school they go to in Sheffield.

The SSG is split into four areas of need. These are from the SEND Code of Practice:

Communication and Interaction:

- Speech and Language
- Social Communication (including children and young people diagnosed with Autism)

Cognition and Learning:

- general learning disabilities
- specific learning difficulties like dyslexia

Social, Emotional and Mental Health:

- difficulties with emotional regulation,
- anxiety
- ADHD
- anorexia
- psychosis

Hearing and Vision (sensory impairments) and Physical:

- hearing difficulties
- visual difficulties
- physical needs
- sensory needs

The SSG looks at what each child or young person needs, not just if they have a diagnosis. It can be used even if a child hasn’t been diagnosed yet.

Schools are asked to start helping children as soon as possible. They don’t need to wait for tests or reports. This means children can get the right help quickly, based on what they need.

For each area and level of need, the grid lists a range of teaching and learning strategies. It lists sources of additional advice and support. Schools are expected to use this as a guide for planning support. Provision should be tailored to the individual child. Not all the provision listed will be suitable for every child who has needs at that level.

The SSG is split into five levels:

Level 1 means a child has mild needs.
Level 5 means a child has more complex needs.

For levels 1 and 2, schools can use a guide called the Ordinarily Available Provision Toolkit. This guide shows what schools should already be doing to help, like making small changes in class or running small group sessions. These are things schools can do without needing extra resources or outside help. This is included in the SSG document.

From level 3 and above, the SSG gives:

A description of what the child needs.
Tools to help plan support.
Advice on what help is needed.
Information about outside services that can support the school.

Schools should use this guide to plan the right support. Every child is different, so not all the help listed will be needed for every child at that level.

If a learner has additional needs, the SENCO will decide which SSG level is the best fit. This will be the best fit for their needs and their provision. To make this decision the SENCO will use assessments completed:

in school
by external professionals

To help with this, scores on various standardised assessment scales have been matched to SSG levels. For example this could be a speech and language assessment.

In the updated SSG (2025), levelling grids have been introduced in these sections:

1a Speech and Language
1c Speech and Fluency
2 Cognition and Learning

These grids help SENCOs and other support teams understand how a child is doing and what they need.

Talking with everyone involved helps decide which SSG level(s) best describe a child. It should involve the child’s parents and outside professionals, where appropriate.

People who support the child, like Educational Psychologists or other support services, often help decide which grid level is right. These levels are also talked about in locality meetings to make sure everyone works well together and gives the right support.

Sometimes, services use the SSG levels to help decide which children need help first. The best way to do this is for schools and outside services to work together and agree on which children need support and when.

SSG levels can also help when thinking about whether a child might need an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan.

If a child’s needs are at the lower levels, they usually don’t need more help than what a mainstream setting can already give.
But it’s important to know that the SSG is just a guide. It’s not a legal rule. Decisions are made by looking at all the information about the child.

Parents can ask for an EHC needs assessment at any time, no matter what SSG level their child is on.

An EHC needs assessment looks at whether a child has special educational needs needing support over and above what a mainstream setting can usually provide.

If parents or carers don’t agree with something, they should first talk to the SENCO (the teacher in charge of special needs support).

It’s important to know that a child might act differently at home than they do at school. The best way to help is to try and understand both sides and make a plan that works in both places.

Sometimes, schools might write down two different levels of need—one for home and one for school—to show the difference.

If you still need help, you can:

Talk to SENDIAS (a free service that gives advice to parents).
Use the disagreement resolution service.

If the problem still isn’t sorted, you can make a formal complaint. Every school must have a complaints process, and it should be on the school’s website.

Mainstream schools get money from the government to help children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). This money is called the “notional SEN budget.”

The amount each school gets is worked out using a national formula.
It’s not based on how many children in the school have SEND.
Schools must use this money to give extra help to children who need it.

Schools are expected to spend up to £6,000 per child each year if needed. Not every child with SEND will need that much support.

From 2025, if a child has an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan, the Local Authority will give money directly to support them.

This money is based on what the child needs, as written in their EHC Plan.

Extra funding for children without an EHC plan is being reviewed.

What is the Sheffield Support Grid?

Sheffield Support Grid

Who has produced it, and why?

In this section

Links and documents