Graduated approach to inclusion - SENCO Guide

What is a graduated approach?

The Plymouth Graduated Approach to Inclusion Framework is an electronic tool to support teachers and school leaders to identify, assess and record the needs of children and young people requiring additional or special educational provision.

This framework is designed to support the identification, planning and recording of appropriate support and provides guidance to help review progress.

The framework provides a structure to enable the effective use of Plymouth's Local Offer. The Local Offer provides children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities, families and professionals, with information in one place, helping them to understand what services they can expect from a range of local agencies (including their entitlements).

The Local Offer covers provision for children and young people from birth to 25 and includes information about education, health and social care services.

The graduated approach framework

This framework is split into two parts:

Part 1 supports schools and settings with the identification of vulnerable pupils and those pupils with special educational needs.
Part 2 supports schools in planning to meet the needs identified in part one, signposts to appropriate resources and websites.

What is the framework designed to do?

The framework is designed to help educational settings understand and meet their duties across a range of legislation and guidance. It also helps to support families and young people to understand how educational settings offer support.

The framework helps school staff, particularly SENCOs, leadership teams and class teachers, understand the common approach to meeting needs across the city. It also helps to support professionals in health, care and the voluntary sector to sign-post families and young people to the support they need.

Using the graduated approach framework

How the framework works

In Plymouth, we have built on the SEND Pathway of Support and the wider early help continuum to develop one, integrated, holistic graduated approach which is captured in the Early Help Assessment Tool (EHAT). This pathway will enable practitioners to work with children, young people and their families ensuring they receive the right support when they need it most.

For children with SEND the assess, plan, do and review process to meet their needs may be used to inform the EHAT process.

Plymouth's multi-agency approach

Many learners have needs spanning more than one category and certain conditions may not fall neatly into one area of need. Guidance to help with assessing special educational needs and managing provision is divided into three levels:

Universal
Targeted
Specialist

Some learners will need assessment and advice from a range of professionals.

Schools should consider involving specialists, including those secured by the school itself or from outside agencies (Code of Practice 6.58).

A school should always consider involving professionals where a learner continues to make little or no progress, or where they continue to work at levels substantially below those expected, despite evidence-based SEN support delivered by appropriately trained staff.

This way of working is referred to as a multi-agency approach and is usually coordinated by the SENCO.

Who is considered a professional?

Professionals may include, but are not limited to:

specialist teachers or support workers, for example, teachers with a mandatory qualification for children with hearing and/or visual impairment
educational psychologists
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) professionals
therapists, including speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists
a range of medical professionals, for example, paediatricians
social workers in appropriate cases