Additional Support for Learning
Our aspiration for all children and young people in Scotland is that they should be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society and at work. They are our future and we all have responsibilities to ensure that they are safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, active, respected and responsible, and included.
Supporting Children's Learning, Code of Practice 2005 - Ministerial foreword
Clackmannanshire is fully committed to inclusion.
Equality of access to education is fundamental to the development of a just and fair society. Thus it is essential that all children and young people have an entitlement to equality of opportunity through access to a broad and balanced curriculum.
Clackmannanshire Inclusion Policy (May 2005)
Inclusion, in education, can be seen as increasing the participation of children and young people in the community, curriculum and the culture of their school. Clackmannanshire's Inclusion Policy provides a clear perspective and a strategic framework giving guidance to schools on support for pupils and inclusion.
An inclusive approach to education involves:
- Creating an ethos of achievement for all pupils within a climate of high expectation;
- Valuing a broad range of talents, abilities and achievements;
- Promoting success and self-esteem by taking action to remove barriers to learning;
- Countering conscious and unconscious discrimination that may prevent individuals, or pupils from any particular groups from thriving in the school;
- Actively promoting understanding and a positive appreciation of the diversity of individuals and groups within society.
Creating an inclusive ethos necessitates planning to address a wide range of needs within establishments, and across the authority as a whole. Challenges may arise from the need to provide support for pupils across a range of areas defined thus in the Code of Practice:
- The learning environment;
- Family circumstances;
- Disability or health;
- Social and emotional factors.
All staff work hard to ensure that schools are organised to encourage children and young people to achieve their best. Improving the capacity of all establishments so that they can provide effectively for a wider range of needs is a key part of our implementation strategy. Maintaining and improving a range of specialist provision and support as of an inclusive system is also an essential element in this overall approach.
Children and young people's needs cannot be met by agencies working in isolation. Social work and health have critical contributions to make and Clackmannanshire Council is committed to the development of partnership working and integrated support for our children and young people.
The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 which became law in November 2005, introduced a new framework for supporting all children and young people who require additional help with their learning. Clackmannanshire Council along with appropriate agencies has a duty to carry out certain functions under this act.
In order to achieve this there has been the opportunity to review
- provision of resources,
- particular approaches to teaching,
- existing systems and protocols for identifying and meeting additional support needs.
Review and development of the above will continue as an ongoing process within the Authority.
The following pages set out the procedures that enable us to identify those children and young people who have additional support needs and how we go about meeting these assessed needs.
In implementing these procedures we must ensure that we take account of values and principles which involve:
- Taking a holistic view of children and young people and their circumstances, and what they need to grow and develop to achieve their potential;
- Seeking, noting and taking account of the views of children, young people and parents;
- Ensuring that parents and young people understand, and are asked to agree to, the aims of any assessment;
- Ensuring that assessment is an ongoing, integrated process of planning, providing for, and reviewing, services for the individual;
- Adopting the least intrusive and most effective course of action affecting the lives of children, young people and families;
- Taking into account issues of diversity and equality and ensuring that outcomes do not discriminate against children, young people and their families. This includes not discriminating on the grounds of race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion or belief, and age.
- Working in partnership with parents to secure education for their children and to promote their child's health, development and welfare.
Supporting Children's Learning, Code of Practice, 2005 (page 21)
Clackmannanshire Council is using the opportunity offered by the legislation to
- further clarify the pathways we take to promote inclusion, and
- enhance the partnerships that are essential to ensure that every child and young person achieves in the broadest sense of the word.
Publications & Documents
External Links
See also
Page & Site Tools
Contact information
For further information about this page please contact:
Quality Improvement Officer (ASN), Educational Development Service
Kilncraigs, Greenside Street, Alloa, FK10 1EB
Tel: 01259 452377 / 450000 Fax: 01259 452440
Email: servicestopeople@clacks.gov.uk
Or use the on-line contact form
