This paper presents a novel numerical procedure based on edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES–FEM) in combination with the C0-type higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) for static and dynamic analysis of laminated composite plate. In the present ES–FEM, only the linear approximation is necessary and the discrete shear gap method (DSG) for triangular plate elements is used to avoid the shear locking and spurious zero energy modes. In addition, the stiffness matrices are computed based on smoothing domains associated with the edges of the triangular elements through a strain smoothing technique. Using the C0-type HSDT, the shear correction factors in the original ES-DSG3 can be removed and replaced by two additional degrees of freedom at each node. Several numerical examples are given to show the performance of the proposed method and results obtained are compared to other available ones.