For the purposes of this guidance, ordinarily available provision is broken into 3 levels. These are:
- Inclusive support for all students.
- Personalised support for some students.
- Highly personalised support for a few students.
Ordinarily Available Provision for students up to 25 years of age
Ordinarily available provision refers to inclusive, quality first teaching with reasonable adjustments being made.
When reviewing and managing special educational provision, it is important to consider the 4 broad areas of need from the SEN code of practice so you can make sure you are providing support across them all. Many students have needs across more than one category and certain conditions may not fall neatly into one area of need.
The 4 areas of need are:
- language and communication needs
- cognition and learning needs
- social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs
- physical and sensory needs
Settings must be flexible and creative in the way they deliver ordinarily available provision.
Despite receiving inclusive support over a sustained period, some students’ needs will not be met. In this case, they may require personalised or highly personalised provision. When personalised or highly personalised provision continues to be required in the longer-term (after 2 cycles of APDR), this could be used as evidence that an Education, Health, and Care needs assessment might be considered. ordinarily available provision should continue to be provided when a child or young person has an EHCP.
Settings typically start the APDR cycle when they identify a student as needing support due to their learning difficulties or other needs and disabilities. This is often done through:
- assessments
- comparing the student’s development to peers
- listening to input from parent carers
Once their needs are assessed, a plan is agreed upon to address these needs. The cycle continues if the student’s progress is not meeting the expected outcomes. This requires regular reviews and adjustments to the plan as necessary.
This guidance applies to early years settings, primary and secondary schools and post-16 colleges. Staff should consider the age and phase of the student and change provision accordingly. Some examples of adapting provision include:
- a safe space in a nursery or primary setting in the form of a tent in the classroom; this would not be the case in a secondary school or college
- doing small group interventions as a lesson in the learning support area at secondary school or college
- pre-teaching vocabulary as a homework exercise for secondary or college students; this may be delivered as individual work with a teaching assistant in a nursery or primary school
It is important to ensure that the provision each setting offers can be considered equivalent, even though it may look different.
The next pages begin with a summary of what would be considered general guidance to delivering ordinarily available provision in all settings. This is the support that the Bracknell Forest Local Authority expects to be available in all settings for all students.
They are then separated into the 4 areas of need from the SEN code of practice.