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introduction
Purpose of the Act
1. The Education (Additional Support for Learning)
(Scotland) Act 2004 ("the Act") introduces a new framework
for providing for children and young people who require
some additional help with their learning. The Act aims to
ensure that all children and young people are provided with
the necessary support to help them work towards achieving
their full potential. It also promotes collaborative
working among all those supporting children and young
people.
Purpose of the code
2. The code explains the new duties on education
authorities and other agencies to support children's and
young people's learning. It provides guidance on the Act's
provisions as well as on the supporting framework of
secondary legislation. The code uses the term "the Act" to
include, where appropriate, the secondary legislative
provisions and includes features of good practice on how
these can be applied. It also sets out new arrangements for
avoiding and resolving differences between families and
authorities.
Status of the code
3. Education authorities and appropriate agencies, such
as
NHS Boards and social work services, are
under a duty to have regard to the code when carrying out
their functions under the Act. The code is designed to help
them make effective decisions but it cannot be prescriptive
about what is required in individual circumstances.
Education authorities and appropriate agencies must ensure
that their policies, practices and information and advice
services take full account of the legal requirements of the
Act. The code includes brief case studies and examples of
good practice to illustrate some of the processes involved
in applying the Act's main provisions. These do not offer
definitive interpretations of the legislation since this is
ultimately a matter for the courts.
4. The code is intended to explain the principles of the
new law and to illustrate how the law might operate in
certain situations. It is important to an appropriate
understanding of this new framework that this code of
practice is read as a whole. Individual chapters should not
be taken out of the context of the whole code or read in
isolation from each other and the Act and the related
secondary legislation. There are some issues which the code
cannot resolve and which must await the authoritative
interpretation of the courts. The code is not intended to
be a substitute for taking appropriate advice on the legal
implications of particular situations.
Other legislation
5. The guidance in this code should be read alongside
equality and other legislation and policy initiatives where
appropriate. In particular, the development of an
Integrated Assessment Framework
1 will have implications for education authorities'
and other agencies' support for learning strategies. The
guidance in the code has been written so that it does not
inhibit future development of the framework. It reflects
the principles underlying such a framework and refers to
the need for integrated assessment and planning, where
required. A summary of other relevant legislation and
policy issues is provided at Annex A. The associated
regulations and guidance circulars which are referred to
throughout the code are contained within appendices to the
code and do not form part of the code itself.
Who should read the code?
6. Education authorities and other appropriate agencies
should encourage and support their employees in gaining
knowledge of the content of the code and understanding of
its application in their day-to-day work. Parents and young
people may wish to refer to the code for information and
advice on exercising their rights. However, specific
guidance is available for them from Enquire, the helpline
funded by the Scottish Executive which provides information
and advice on additional support needs.
7. Examples of professionals across agencies who are
under a duty to have regard to the code, or others who may
find it useful when carrying out duties under other
legislation, include:
Multi-agency planners: policy officers,
planners and service managers working in children's
services planning networks across education, health, social
care, further education and training.
Education: education directorate, head
teachers, teachers, classroom assistants, educational
psychologists, staff in schools and nursery provision,
including partner providers for pre-school education.
Early years and childcare: nursery nurses,
early years workers in family centres, staff delivering out
of school provision.
Health: health visitors, public health
nurses, community child health teams, paediatricians,
physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and
language therapists, other allied health professionals,
clinical psychologists, and medical practitioners in
paediatrics, general practice and child and family
psychiatry.
Social work: social workers, residential
child care staff, support workers, adoption and foster care
service staff and social workers with responsibility for
child protection and looked after children.
Voluntary sector: staff working in the
whole range of children's services.
Other agencies: professionals in other
agencies who may be involved in integrated assessment
teams, for example, childcare fieldworkers, youth workers,
Children's Reporters, police, schools/community liaison
team, community workers, staff working in careers services
and in higher and further education.
Definitions
8. A young person has the same meaning as under the
Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (referred to here as "the
1980 Act") which is a person over school age (generally
over 16 years) who is not yet 18 years of age and receiving
school education. Throughout the code the term young people
is used instead of young persons, for ease of
understanding.
9. "Education authority" under the 1980 Act is defined
as a council constituted under section 2 of the Local
Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. In practical terms,
the education authority and the local authority are the
same entity. In general, the code refers to an education
authority when considering a local authority's educational
functions and to a local authority in respect of all of its
functions including educational ones and others such as,
for example, social work services.
10. The Act applies generally to pre-school provision,
which is under the management of the education authority,
made for prescribed pre-school children. This provision
also can include provision where an education authority
have an arrangement with another provider; for example,
where the authority have arranged for children to attend a
private nursery under a partnership agreement. In certain
circumstances, described in Chapter 3, the education
authority have a duty to make provision for certain
disabled children under the age of 3 years.
11. The meaning of disability, used in the code, is as
defined in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c50),
section 1(1). This states that "a person has a disability
for the purposes of this Act if he has a physical or mental
impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse
effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day
activities".
References in the code
12. The code refers to the Act and its associated
regulations. References to the Act are in the margin of
each page, for example s1(1)(a) refers to Section 1,
subsection 1(a). References to the titles of other
legislation or policies are also in the margin of each
page.
Transitional arrangements
13. The Act makes provision for safeguards for those
children and young people who had a Record of Needs under
the legislation repealed by the Act. These safeguards and
the transitional arrangements are set out in the
appropriate circular.
Further information
Further information on the code of practice is available
from:
Additional Support Needs Division
Scottish Executive Education Department
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ
Tel: 0131 244 1589
Fax: 0131 244 7943
Email:
ASLAct@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
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