Additional Learning Needs and
the role of the LSA

Siân Brooks

Key questions

• What are the main changes in ALN provision?
• How effective are schools in including all pupils?
• Can you develop a strategy to use your LSA effectively?

ALN: a new era for Wales

StatsWales, July 2015

• The latest school census data on SEN shows that in the school year 2014/15, there were 104,957 pupils with SEN in maintained schools in Wales,
• Only a minority of them (12%) had a statement of SEN

What is being described?

• “Complex, bewildering and adversarial”
• “Stigmatises children”
• “Lack of clear criteria”
• “Divergence and inconsistency in approaches across Wales”
• “No longer fit for purpose”

Draft Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Bill

Proposals for a new legislative system
for supporting children and young people, aged 0-25, who have Additional Learning Needs.

Proposals for a new legislative system
for supporting children and young people, aged 0-25, who have Additional Learning Needs.

Draft ALN Code 2015:
A more integrated, collaborative process with early, timely and effective interventions.

“Young people may be finding their voice for the first time and may, therefore, need support in exercising choice and control over the support they receive.”

Main changes

• ‘Additional learning needs’ and ‘additional learning provision’ to be used.
• Age range to extend 0- 25
• Statements of SEN will be replaced with an Individual Development Plan.
• The statutory duty for preparing and implementing an IDP will rest with local authorities, to ensure that there is accountability for the delivery of ALN provision.
• A new ALN Code of Practice

What’s in a name?

Why are we going to move from SEN to ALN in Wales?

Special Education

• In the 1996 Education Act those with a learning difficulty were deemed to need some kind of special educational provision.
• As early as 1997 Hall writes of a ‘Special Land’ where pupils with SEN rejected from mainstream activities…

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

• Article 23 states that a disabled child has the right to special care, education and training designed to help them achieve the greatest possible self-reliance to lead a full and active life.

Models of disability

• The medical model of disability, or the individual model or the individual model, takes a ‘within child’ deficit approach and attempts to cure or remedy the condition. (Connor & Stalker, 2007: 21)
• The social model of disability acknowledges the impact of access issues within physical environments and the effect of ‘discriminatory attitudes and practice’ (Booth & Ainscow, 2011: 45)

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“I think he’s on the Spectrum”

GROWTH MINDSET
& ALN

Inclusion

“Not ‘one size fits all’, as inclusion has been parodied, but ‘all sizes fit in here’ ”

(Barton 2005 quoted in Rieser 2011)

A curriculum fo Wales, a curriculum for life

Inclusion "involves removing barriers in environment, attitudes, communication, curriculum, teaching, socialisation and assessment at all levels”

Inclusive Education at 2009 Salamanca Conference

Fundamental principles underpinning inclusive education include:

reducing barriers to learning and participation for all students
emphasising the role of schools in building community and developing values recognising that inclusion in education is one aspect of inclusion in society.
(Booth and Ainscow 2002)

Our schools are ‘inclusive’, aren't they?

The role of the LSA

The LSA: a bridge or a barrier?

Key questions

• What are the main changes in ALN provision?
• How effective are schools in including all pupils?
• Can you develop a strategy to use your LSA effectively?

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