The Scottish Government

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MOVING FORWARD!
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR LEARNING

Introduction

1. This vision has been agreed in discussion with members of the National Special Educational Needs Advisory Forum and underpins our strategy for meeting the needs of children who require additional support for learning.

Principles

2. Supporting this vision are certain key principles:

• education must be child-centred, yet take a holistic approach to the needs of the child and his or her family;
• schools should demonstrate a commitment to inclusiveness;
• the rights and views of children, young people and their parents should be respected and listened to;
• national and local policies for improving standards should include all children; and
• allocation of resources by schools, local authorities and their partners should demonstrate a commitment to inclusiveness and delivery of integrated services; and take account of the diversity of local pupil populations.

Framework

3. The building blocks for a framework to take forward the above vision and principles have been laid in recent legislation and policies (see diagram below). Here we:

• set out the context for the further changes that are required to complete a strategic framework for addressing the needs of all children who may require additional support for learning; and
• locate our evolving policies for additional support for learning within the context of our national priorities for education in Scotland.

4. New proposals are included in the draft Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill and described in detail in a separate policy paper, both of which have been published for public consultation. Changes to the framework described here may be required, depending on the outcome of public consultation and subsequent Parliamentary debate.

5. Our discussions with the National SEN Advisory Forum have taken account of the changing development of thinking in the area of special educational needs (SEN). While all children need support to learn, some face barriers to learning which call for specific provision to be made to help them to achieve. Such children may include those who are looked after by local authorities, Gipsy and Traveller children, those with English as a second language, or those with special educational needs. It was recognised that an inclusive framework should not see any one group of children in isolation. But nor should it assume that the barriers faced by such children are the same across different groups.

6. Our intention here is to refer to some of the significant special educational needs milestones in the past, to what is currently in progress, or already planned, and to how the agenda for supporting the learning needs of all children is changing. Our intention is not to produce a prescriptive blueprint for change because that would constrain the creative, innovative responses which will be required over the next few years to adapt to changing circumstances. Nor are we able to refer to all the legislation and policies covering all groups of children who may receive additional support. Our aim is to work with local authorities, and all others concerned with ensuring that children who need additional support for learning make progress, to meet our commitment of doing the best we can for all children. In this document, we describe how that work can move forward.

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