The PES in Vaud: What Happens After Your Child Is Flagged at School

The school has formally flagged your child. You have received a letter asking you to attend a meeting and sign consent forms. You may have heard the words signalement, réseau, and PES — possibly in the same conversation, in French, very fast.

This article explains exactly what these procedures mean and what you need to know before you sign anything.

The Signalement: The Formal Flag

A signalement is the school's formal written observation that a student is showing significant difficulties meeting the standard curriculum objectives. It is typically initiated through the school direction (directeur d'établissement), drawing on the classroom teacher's observations.

The signalement is not a diagnosis. It is an administrative trigger — an official record that the school has observed the difficulty and is beginning a structured response. In Vaud, this document must be communicated to parents, and crucially, parents must provide written consent before the school can proceed with a formal evaluation. You will be asked to sign a DGEO consent form.

Read this form carefully before signing. It explains what you are authorizing the school to do next. If you do not fully understand the document, ask how to obtain a translation before consenting.

Mesures Ordinaires: What the School Can Do Without Canton Approval

Before a formal PES authorizes mesures renforcées, Vaud's Concept 360° framework expects the school network to document what mesures ordinaires (ordinary measures) have been tried. These are interventions the local school can consider without waiting for the full cantonal process:

• Appui pédagogique: In-class academic support from the regular teacher with adjusted materials
• MCDI support: Intervention from the itinerant special education teacher (Maître de Classe de Développement Itinérant), who works directly in the mainstream classroom
• DPPLS referral: Access to the cantonal psychology, psychomotricity, and speech therapy service — though wait times commonly run several months
• Basic accommodations: Adjustments to seating, task presentation, and pacing

One of the most common mistakes expat families make is passively waiting for the cantonal PES to produce results. While that process runs, mesures ordinaires are available now. Ask the school director explicitly: "What mesures ordinaires can be implemented this term, while we wait for the evaluation?"

Mesures Renforcées: The Cantonal Tier

Mesures renforcées (enhanced measures) are a completely different category. They require formal cantonal authorization involving the OSPES (Office du soutien pédagogique et de l'enseignement spécialisé) within the DGEO. They include:

• Intensive, dedicated special education teaching
• Placement in a COES (Classe Officielle de l'Enseignement Spécialisé) — a specialized class capped at 12 students, embedded in a mainstream school
• Significant curriculum modification with individualized objectives
• Allocation of a funded integration assistant
• Orientation to a specialized institution (such as those run by Fondation de Verdeil)

The gateway to mesures renforcées is the PES. You cannot skip it.

The PES: The Standardized Assessment Procedure

The Procédure d'évaluation standardisée (PES) is Canton Vaud's implementation of the Swiss intercantonal SAV protocol. Its purpose is to produce a rigorous, multi-dimensional assessment of the child's functioning that justifies the allocation of cantonal resources.

Opening a PES is not automatic. The school network must demonstrate that three conditions are met before the canton will authorize one:

1. The child's situation: Significant academic delays in core subjects, OR a known disabling disorder (severe autism, cerebral palsy, profound intellectual disability, severe dysphasia). The child must be functioning significantly below expected level despite normal schooling.
2. Prior resource use: Ordinary measures including MCDI support and DPPLS services have been tried and documented where relevant.
3. Risk-benefit analysis: The interdisciplinary network has concluded that the expected benefit of intensified support outweighs the risks of removing the child from standard curriculum objectives.

This three-part gate is why documentation matters so much. Every MCDI session, every DPPLS consultation, every modified task the teacher has tried — all of it helps document what mesures ordinaires have been tried, rather than merely attempted once.

The Réseau Meeting: Your Most Important Appointment

The réseau is the interdisciplinary network meeting that lies at the heart of Vaud's SEN process. Participants typically include:

• The parents
• The classroom teacher
• The school director
• The MCDI (if already involved)
• The DPPLS psychologist or logopédiste (if an evaluation has been done)
• Any relevant external specialist (neuropediatrician, private psychologist)

This meeting is where the network collectively considers whether the PES criteria are met and what the recommended course of action is. Core discussion and documentation are generally in French. The pace can be fast; the terminology is dense.

Key preparation steps:

• Bring or request a translator if your French is not strong enough to follow technical discussion.
• If you have foreign diagnostic reports (US IEP documents, UK educational psychologist assessments), translate key documents into French and deliver them to the school director at least five working days before the meeting where possible. Presenting a 40-page English document at the meeting itself is unlikely to help.
• Frame your concerns around functional impact, not diagnosis labels. "My child needs 25% more time to complete written tasks to demonstrate what they know" is far more useful in a Vaud network meeting than "My child has ADHD."

After the PES: What Outcomes to Expect

If the PES results in a finding of need, the canton authorizes a specific form of enhanced measure. The school is then legally required to draft a Projet Pédagogique Individualisé (PPI) — the Vaud equivalent of an IEP — specifying the individualized objectives, accommodations, and support structure. The PPI is reviewed cyclically.

If the PES does not result in authorization of mesures renforcées, the child remains in the mesures ordinaires tier. This outcome is more common than many expat parents expect, given that Vaud's formal authorization rate is one of the lowest in Switzerland.

If you disagree with the outcome, check the official decision for the applicable appeal route and 10-day period. For a decision subject to departmental review, the current department is the DEF (Département de l'enseignement et de la formation professionnelle). This window is shorter than most expat parents from the US or UK expect. See our post on parent rights and appeals in Vaud for the full process.

Getting Outside Help

The DPPLS wait queue is the most consistent bottleneck in the Vaud SEN system. Families who need an evaluation faster — either to meet a réseau deadline or to avoid academic harm during the wait — can commission a private evaluation from an FSP-accredited psychologist in Lausanne or the La Côte region. Many work bilingually. A private evaluation will not bypass the PES, but a high-quality French-language private report presented at a réseau meeting can provide supporting evidence.

The Vaud Canton Special Education Blueprint includes a step-by-step walkthrough of the PES process, the eligibility criteria in detail, template correspondence in French for requesting the signalement and MCDI support, and a preparation guide for the réseau meeting.

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