Graduated Approach

Overview

The SEND Code of Practice (2015) states –

Where a pupil is identified as having SEN, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place. This SEN Support should take the form of a four-part cycle through which earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the pupil’s needs and of what supports the pupil in making good progress and securing good outcomes. This is known as the graduated approach. It draws on more detailed approaches, more frequent review and more specialist expertise in successive cycles in order to match interventions to the SEN of children and young people. (6.44)

In other words, where a child or young person has been identified as having special educational needs (Note: this does not need to be an official diagnoses), the school should be looking at what those barriers to learning are, and then putting support in place to remove them. This should be an ongoing cycle of reviewing and adjusting the support until the outcomes have been achieved.

The Graduated Approach is also known as the Assess, Plan, Do, Review Cycle of support (ADPR).

Diagram of the graduated Approach cycle, explaining how each part links to the other — Image of the Graduated Approach’s four part cycle

The four parts of the Graduated Approach / ADPR cycle are as follows:

Assess: The class teacher or subject teacher (working with the SENCO) is responsible for carrying out a clear analysis of a pupil’s needs, drawing on teacher assessments and experience of the pupil.

This is in any area not just academically (and can include SEMH – Social, Emotional and Mental Health) and neither is it about getting a diagnosis, but identifying any learning needs and barriers to learning.

Plan: Where it is decided to provide a pupil with SEN Support, their parents must be notified. All teachers and support staff who work with a pupil should be made aware of their needs, the outcomes sought, the support provided and any teaching strategies that are required.

Support may be group work, some 1:1 support, maybe some special equipment or maybe just a different position in the classroom, a time out card or a ‘safe’ space. You should be told when these interventions and strategies will happen, how often, who by and then a date for progress to be reviewed should be agreed.

If your child is in year 9 or upwards then there are additional considerations that need to be planned for and discussed such as higher education or employment, independent living, participating in society and how to be as healthy as possible.

Do: The planned interventions should then be put into place. The class or subject teacher should work closely with any teaching assistants or specialist staff involved and the SENCO should support the class or subject teacher.

All those who work with your child should be made aware of their needs, the outcomes sought, the support provided and any teaching strategies or approaches that are required.

Review: Reviews should take place and inform feed back into the analysis of the child’s needs. They should be reviewing the impact and quality of the support and interventions on your child or young person’s progress – how effective has the support been? These should be evaluated along with your views and those of your child / young person in discussion with the school’s view. This may lead to support being tweaked, increased, decreased or even back to assessment if sufficient progress has not been made (and the cycle continues).

The SEND Code of Practice (the ‘Code’) is not prescriptive about how often reviews should take place, but as the Code states in 6.65 that schools should meet with parents at least ‘three times a year’, good practice would indicate that such reviews should be at least termly. The decision to involve specialists can be taken at any time and should always involve parents.

The review should be documented and you should receive a copy. In West Sussex this is generally known as an ISP (Individual Support Plan) although some schools may still use – Individual Learning Plan (ILP), Individual Education Plan (IEP), provision map or perhaps something different. It doesn’t really matter what its called as long as it sets out the required information (the desired outcomes, what provision is being given to meet these, (by whom and when and how,) how you will you all know if the outcomes have been achieved and when the next review will be).