Making ordinarily available inclusive provision available to all children and young people means that fewer children and young people will require additional targeted support. Where OAIP is not meeting the child or young person’s educational needs and support is required that is ‘additional to and different from’ support which is available to other children of the same age, then a child or young person is identified as having special educational needs.
Assess, plan, do, review
Where a child or young person is identified as having SEN then the school needs to put the appropriate support and provision in place to remove the barriers to learning. This process involves a 4-step cycle of assess – plan – do – review. The cycle should be repeated regularly to evaluate the impact of support and interventions so that the child or young person receives more of what is working. Successive cycles should draw on more detailed assessments and may involve external support where this is required. This is known as the graduated approach.
In section 6.44 page 100 of the SEND Code of Practice it states: ‘Where a pupil is identified as having SEN, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place. This SEN support should take the form of a four-part cycle through which earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the pupil’s needs and of what supports the pupil in making good progress and securing good outcomes. This is known as the graduated approach. It draws on more detailed approaches, more frequent review and more specialist expertise in successive cycles in order to match interventions to the SEN of children and young people.’
Ongoing assessment and support
The graduated approach is an ongoing form of assessment and support. It is not a single one-time process. This is because the support might not yet be right for the child or young person and/or the needs of a child or young person may change over time and the support will need to adjust to meet this change.
Ordinarily Available Inclusive provision remains the foundation of inclusive practice and provision for those children who also require targeted support and/ or specific or specialist inputs.
All children in mainstream schools will be able to have at least some of their needs met through ordinarily available inclusive provision, some children may need some provision that is part of the ordinarily available targeted support and a few children will need external or specialist assessment, advice or support.