Bury's Graduated Approach

Introduction

Bury’s education, health and social care services are committed to working in partnership (the partnership) to help settings to remove the barriers to children accessing education; we want Bury children to be thriving in education. Our local area partnership ambition is to remove barriers to include children and young people better from the earliest stages of entering an educational setting so that every child in Bury, regardless of background, ability, identity, or circumstance, will have equitable access to health, care and educational support that meets their needs and empowers their belonging.

Bury’s graduated approach sets out how the local area partnership will support a borough wide growth in understanding and how services will support educational settings to refine their action to meet the needs of all our children and young people, regardless of which setting they attend. This approach will ensure that children and young people will receive the right support in the right place at the right time.

Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision

Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision (OAIP) is a term used to describe the educational provision that will be made available to all children and young people, and which will be delivered through inclusive Quality First Teaching.

It is expected that all Bury educational settings will follow the Greater Manchester guidelines for OAIP. The guidelines are based on the principles of inclusion and the understanding that by establishing clear expectations, we can offer families and providers clarity, consistency and confidence in the support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings. In this way, we believe that the majority of children will have their needs met through access to services that are available to all, guided by an ethos of best practice and reasonable adjustments. The education that children receive from the outset is of utmost importance; we believe that additional intervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good quality teaching. The OAIP guidelines are located here: SEND Support Services .

In addition to the OAIP guidelines, Bury has a toolkit for education settings outlining additional strategies, approaches and resources to support children and young people throughout their education: Bury SEND Graduated Approach Toolkit.

‘Notice, Check and Try’

For a range of reasons, some children will experience additional barriers to accessing their education; this can happen at any stage of education. For these children, it is vital to identify the barriers as early as possible and to address them so that children can continue to make progress. Examples might include children requiring bereavement counselling, or those experiencing difficulties with reading. For some children, health needs may affect progress at school such as mild hearing loss. For others, speech and language development may present a barrier.

This does not necessarily mean that children have a special educational need. ‘Notice, Check and Try’ supports the early identification of need along with appropriate intervention to address the need before difficulties escalate.

This stage is about thinking simply and acting quickly. The first step is noticing emerging barriers; alert and responsive practitioners are key in the early identification of need. Checking is the next step; good communication with everyone who knows the child, including the child themselves, will help to identify the barriers. Then information can be analysed to decide on the next steps.

Trying is the next step. This means putting new strategies or approaches into place to accommodate the barriers. It involves flexibility, persistence and monitoring to see if concerns can be resolved quickly and easily. It will be important to keep families informed and involved to build a trusting relationship.

Early intervention in children’s education at this stage does not need to be complex. It is based on the information gathered and might start, for example, with a daily check-in to relieve a child’s anxiety, or it may be that a Story So Far is opened to bring partners together to put a plan into place. At all stages, open communication with all parties involved and regular review is vital.

The language we use to talk about children’s needs is important. Parents/carers of children with additional needs in Bury tell us the importance of the language that is used during meetings and when talking about their child’s strengths and needs. The document ‘Words have Power’ provides guidance to ensure that communication fosters trusting relationships with families.

SEN Support

For a smaller proportion of children, need may not be able to be met through the approaches outlined at the earlier stages. Additional targeted intervention may be required to address the special educational need. As children’s needs are better understood in the earlier stages, the school SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) may be consulted and a decision made as to whether the child has a special educational need or disability (SEND).

Children with identified SEND are placed at SEN Support and provision that is additional to or different from the provision ordinarily available is put into place. Provision at SEN Support is targeted to meet the child’s specific needs. This provision is more focused than the reasonable adjustments outlined at the earlier stages and will target the child’s individual need.

At SEN Support, the child’s needs will be categorised into one of four areas of need as defined in section six of the SEND Code of Practice (SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years - GOV.UK).

SEN Support is structured through careful planning and delivered in cycles of intervention. The cycle used follows a consistent format of Assess, Plan, Do, Review. The Code of Practice notes that ‘Every teacher is a teacher of SEND’ meaning that the delivery of SEN Support is not the sole responsibility of support staff. Teachers will be actively involved in the planning and implementation of provision.

Leading toward EHC needs assessment

There may be a minority of children whose needs cannot be met despite accessing all available resources in school and within the local area partnership. At this point, settings and families may want to consider requesting an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment from the Local Authority: The EHC Assessment application.

To do this, evidence will need to be collated to explain the child’s special educational needs, along with detail of the special educational provision that has been put into place, and the review of its impact: The EHC assessment process.

(The PDF below is not fully accessible and may not be suitable for users of assistive technology. See: Document accessibility).