Academic year 2024/25

Special educational needs in England

Pupils in England with SEN support or an education, health and care plan (EHCP). Including type of need, age, gender, free school meals (FSM) and ethnicity.

Release type
Published
Last updated
3 updatesfor Academic year 2024/25
UK statistics authority quality mark

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

6 data sets available for download

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  • Age and Gender, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and AP schools by SEN provision, type of need, age and sex.

    Number of rows
    314,273
    Indicators
    • Age 10
    • Age 10 percent
    • Age 11
    Filters
    • Phase type of school
    • Primary type of need
    • SEN provision
    Time period
    2015/16 to 2024/25
    Create table using Age and Gender, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025
  • FSM, Ethnicity and Language, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and AP schools by SEN provision, type of need, free school meal eligibility, language and ethnicity.

    Number of rows
    314,273
    Indicators
    • Any other ethnic group
    • Any other ethnic group (%)
    • Asian - Bangladeshi
    Filters
    • Phase type of school
    • Primary type of need
    • SEN provision
    Time period
    2015/16 to 2024/25
    Create table using FSM, Ethnicity and Language, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025
  • Year group, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and AP schools by SEN provision, type of need and national curriculum year.

    Number of rows
    314,273
    Indicators
    • Early years
    • Early years (%)
    • Headcount
    Filters
    • Phase type of school
    • Primary type of need
    • SEN provision
    Time period
    2015/16 to 2024/25
    Create table using Year group, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025
  • Pupils in all schools, by type of SEN provision - 2016 to 2025

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools, AP schools and independent schools by SEN provision, type of need and school type.

    Number of rows
    124,808
    Indicators
    • EHC plans
    • EHC plans (percent)
    • Headcount
    Filters
    • Hospital school flag
    • Phase type of school
    • School type detail
    Time period
    2015/16 to 2024/25
    Create table using Pupils in all schools, by type of SEN provision - 2016 to 2025
  • Secondary need, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and AP schools by SEN provision, primary type of need and secondary type of need

    Number of rows
    314,273
    Indicators
    • Autistic Spectrum Disorder
    • Autistic Spectrum Disorder (%)
    • Headcount
    Filters
    • Phase type of school
    • Primary type of need
    • SEN provision
    Time period
    2015/16 to 2024/25
    Create table using Secondary need, by type of SEN provision and type of need - 2016 to 2025
  • SEN by ethnicity, FSM, year group and primary need

    National

    Number of pupils in state-funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and AP schools by SEN provision, ethnicity, free school meal eligibility, year group and primary type of need.

    Number of rows
    293,037
    Indicators
    • Education, Health and Care plan
    • Education, Health and Care plan (%)
    • Headcount
    Filters
    • Free school meal eligibility
    • Major ethnic group
    • Minor ethnic group
    Time period
    2022/23 to 2024/25
    Create table using SEN by ethnicity, FSM, year group and primary need

Supporting files

Supporting files provide an area for teams to supply non-standard files for download by users where required.


Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘Special educational needs in England’ National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab) (opens in new tab).

The publication methodology, available on the publication report, should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

This release provides information on the number of schools and pupils in:

  • state-funded primary schools
  • state-funded secondary schools
  • state-funded special schools
  • non-maintained special schools
  • state-funded alternative provision schools (includes pupil referral units, alternative provision academies and free schools)
  • independent schools

It includes information on:

  • pupil numbers, including, SEN provision, SEN type of need, sex, ethnicity, language and free school meals eligibility
  • school numbers, including resourced provision, SEN units and approved provisions (special schools only) 

The information is based on data collected via the pupil level spring school census, school level annual school census, general hospital schools census and alternative provision census.

File formats and conventions

This dataset has not had suppression applied.

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data. 

‘x’ Not applicable

‘z’ Not available


Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Special educational needs in England statistics and data:

Special educational needs statistics team

Email: sen.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Ricardo Hayward

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

Opening times

Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)