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1. About this report
This report describes Suffolk Sensory Kitchen’s offer for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). It is published in line with the SEND Code of Practice 0–25 and the Children and Families Act 2014. It is reviewed annually by the Board, and immediately following any material change to the underlying statutory framework.
Although the Provision is not currently a state-maintained setting, we follow the spirit and the letter of the SEND Code of Practice. Where we are commissioned to deliver against EHCP Section F provision, we do so under the terms of the relevant SLA with the commissioning Local Authority.
2. The young people we work with
The cohort we serve is, overwhelmingly, a SEND cohort. The most common profiles we see are:
- Late-identified autistic young people in burnout.
- Young people with ADHD presenting with significant executive function and emotional regulation needs.
- Young people with anxiety disorders - generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic.
- Young people with EBSA (Emotionally Based School Avoidance) of varying severity.
- Young people with attachment difficulties, including those who are looked-after or previously looked-after.
- Young people with sensory processing difficulties, with or without a formal diagnosis.
- Young people with co-occurring needs in the above categories - which is, in fact, the majority.
Many students arrive with an EHCP; others arrive at SEND Support level (K-code) but with significant unmet need; a small number arrive without any formal SEND status but with a presentation that, in our view, warrants assessment. In all three groups we deliver the same adapted offer.
3. Identification & assessment
We do not, ourselves, issue SEND diagnoses or write EHCPs - those remain the responsibility of the Local Authority and the relevant clinical services. We do, however, assess the young person across four domains at point of placement, using a structured intake protocol:
- Cognition & learning - including literacy and numeracy levels relevant to following a recipe and unit-pricing a shop.
- Communication & interaction - preferred communication style, processing time, social anxiety triggers.
- Social, emotional & mental health - including a Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), with parent and student forms.
- Sensory & physical - using an adapted Adolescent / Adult Sensory Profile (AASP) interview style, with parental input where helpful.
The result is a single-page Pupil Profile that lives at the front of the student’s file and that is referred to at the start of every session.
4. Curriculum adaptation
The four-module curriculum is delivered through a deliberately adapted pedagogy:
- Visual schedules. Every session begins with a visual schedule on the kitchen wall, depicting the day in pictures and a small amount of text.
- Chunked instructions. Verbal instructions are kept to single steps. We model rather than narrate.
- Processing time. Questions are asked once, then waited on for at least seven seconds before a follow-up.
- Choice within structure. The student does not choose whether to cook; they choose which station, which task within the recipe, which pair to work in.
- Low-stakes assessment. No tests during placement; assessment is by portfolio and observation.
- Predictable repetition. The structure of the week (see Curriculum Overview) does not change. The food changes; the rhythm does not.
5. Sensory environment
The kitchen is deliberately designed as a low-arousal environment. Specifically:
- Warm, dimmable lighting; no overhead fluorescents during student-facing time.
- Soft surfaces where practical - sound-absorbing fabric on chair bases, rubber matting underfoot.
- Background music is optional and student-chosen, with a maximum volume cap.
- A designated quiet corner with a bean bag, weighted blanket and noise-reducing ear defenders available without asking.
- Strong-smell tasks (e.g. fish, fermented preparations) are flagged in advance and station-positioned to allow students with olfactory sensitivities to opt out.
- Touch-aversive students are offered task adaptations (e.g. gloves for raw chicken, fork-based mixing instead of hand-kneading).
6. Autistic learners
Many of our students are autistic. We follow the principles of the Autism Education Trust framework. Specifically we:
- Avoid demand-heavy language; we use indirect requests and visual cues where direct demand is a known trigger.
- Build social demand gradually; we do not require eye contact, smiling or small talk.
- Accept stimming, fidgeting and any other regulating behaviour that is not unsafe.
- Provide advance notice of any change to routine wherever practicable.
- Co-write a one-page profile, in the student’s own words, that travels home and to the home school.
- Recognise that an autistic shutdown is a regulating response, not a behaviour to be sanctioned.
7. ADHD & executive function
For young people with ADHD we adapt the following:
- Movement is built into the session; standing prep stations are the default.
- External executive function is scaffolded - written and visual recipes are always available; we do not require recall from memory.
- We work with the medication rhythm of the student, not against it. Where medication wears off late in the day, the demanding chemistry sits at the start.
- Time blindness is anticipated; we use visible timers and gentle five-minute warnings.
- We praise effort, not output. We do not reward children for finishing first.
8. Anxiety, EBSA & attachment
For young people whose route to us has been through EBSA, anxiety or attachment-related difficulty we:
- Begin with attendance demands that are deliberately, sometimes uncomfortably, low - a single 90-minute session in the first week, building only as the student’s body allows.
- Offer the same key adults at every session - staff continuity is a clinical intervention with this cohort.
- Hold a “bring a trusted adult” option for the first session, where the parent or carer can be in the room during the first arrival.
- Track regulation, not attendance, in the early weeks. Coming to the building counts; cooking comes later.
- Hold close contact with the home school so that any reintegration is sequenced through the home school, not in spite of it.
9. Food aversions, ARFID-style presentations & eating disorders
A significant minority of our students have a complex relationship with food that includes severe sensory aversion, restrictive eating patterns or - less often - a diagnosable eating disorder. We are clear, in writing, with referring schools at point of referral, that:
- Suffolk Sensory Kitchen is not an eating disorders treatment service and never claims to be.
- We will not coerce, pressure or visibly weight any young person around food.
- For students with an active eating disorder diagnosis, we expect a parallel clinical service to be in place and we co-ordinate, in writing, with that service before placement.
- For ARFID-style presentations and severe sensory aversion, we work at the food the student can engage with - texture, smell, sight, and only finally taste - gently widening the safe-food repertoire over a placement.
- No student is required to eat anything they cook.
10. Working with EHCPs
Where a young person has an Education, Health and Care Plan, we read it cover to cover before placement begins. We extract Section F provision into measurable, time-bounded targets on the Pupil Profile. We attend the annual review wherever possible, and we always provide a written contribution to the review where attendance is not possible. We work in honest partnership with the SEND Caseworker.
11. Reintegration & step-up
From Week 4 of every placement, we begin to co-author the reintegration or step-up plan with the home school and the family. Common outcomes include a phased return to the home school, a managed move to a more suitable mainstream setting, a step into a KS4 vocational pathway, or - in some cases - a recommendation that the local authority considers a different specialist placement. We are not, and have never been, a setting that holds young people indefinitely.
12. Pupil & parent voice
We collect pupil and parent voice in three ways:
- A short start-of-placement conversation and a short end-of-placement conversation, recorded with consent.
- An anonymous mid-placement survey, in paper.
- A quarterly parent / carer voice group - an informal cup of tea at the kitchen, open to anyone whose child is currently or recently with us.
13. Review
This report is reviewed annually and re-published. The Director with responsibility for SEND is Kirsty Wilson (SENCO, holding the National Award for Special Educational Needs Co-ordination).
Editing this policy: The full text of every policy lives in /app/policies/*/page.tsx and supporting copy lives in /content. The named author and approving director should re-date the document at every review.