What are additional support needs?
All children and young people benefit from school education when they can access a curriculum which supports their leaning and personal development; where teaching and support form others meet their needs; where they can learn with and from their peers and when their learning is supported by the parents in the home and the wider community.
A child or young person has additional support needs if they are unable to benefit from school education without some kind of additional support.
Additional support needs may be short or long term and will only arise if a child or young person’s learning is affected. They can arise from four overlapping themes – learning environment, family circumstances, a disability or health need and social and emotional factors.
A list of possible additional support needs can be found in the Code of Practice, Chapter 1, Section 2.
What is the difference between additional support needs and special educational needs?
The definition of Special Educational Needs came from the 1980 Education Act. This traditionally only applied to children and young people with particular types of learning needs. Additional support needs is a much broader and more inclusive term. When the Act is implemented, the term special educational needs will no longer be used.
How will additional support needs be identified?
A child or young person will have additional support needs if there is evidence to show that they need support to make educational progress appropriate to their age and ability. Further information on this is available in the authority’s guidelines, Chapter 3, Section 2 and the accompanying tables.
The Act makes provision for parents and young people to request the education authority to establish whether their child has additional support needs. The authority must comply with this request, unless they think it is unreasonable, and must inform the parents, or young person, as appropriate, of any additional support needs identified.
Who will be responsible for identifying additional support needs?
In practice this is likely to be the class or subject teacher through the normal arrangements for assessing learning, monitoring educational progress and parental consultation. Parents may also request the authority to establish whether their child has additional support needs. This also applies to a young person in their own right.
Who will be responsible for ensuring that a child or young person’s needs are met?
Initially, the class or subject teacher will have responsibility for ensuring a child or young person’s needs are met. Each school will be asked to set up an Additional Support for Learning (ASL) team with a member of the senior management team having overall responsibility. Further guidance on this can be found in Chapter 2, Section ? Roles and Responsibilities, and in Chapter 3, Section 2 and the accompanying tables.
How will a child or young person’s additional support needs be documented?
Most schools will already have methods of recording children’s needs and how they are met. However, the authority’s Guidelines and Procedures contain suggestions of how they might be documented in Appendix ??
What is additional support?
Some children and young people require support which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision that is generally provided to their peers in order to help them benefit form school education. Examples of additional support can be found in the Code of Practice, Chapter 2 Sections 7-10
Who will provide the additional support if it is required?
Additional support could be provided by a range of people depending on the needs of the child or young person. These could include teachers, nursery nurses, learning assistants, bilingual support assistants, social workers, allied health professionals and voluntary agency staff, working in partnership with parents. See Code of Practice, Chapter 2, Sections 7-10
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