Additional Support for Learning Project Board minutes: September 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Scottish Government (SG) (Chair)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Education Scotland (ES)
• Association of Scottish Principal Education Psychologists (ASPEP)
• Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Education Institute of Scotland (EIS)
• Children in Scotland (CiS)
• UNISON
• SG Early Learning and Childcare Team (SG ELC)
• National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT)
• SG Supporting Learners’ Team (SG)
• Audit Scotland (Observer)

Apologies

• SOLACE
• Allied Health Professional Leads
• Social Work Scotland
• Grant Aided Special Schools (GASS)
• ADES Early Years
• ENABLE

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The Chair welcomed members to the meeting of the Additional Support for Learning (ASL) Project Board (PB). The chair thanked members who had travelled to Verity House to attend in person, and those members who were attending virtually. The Chair welcomed the new representative for ASPEP who was attending for the first time. Apologies were noted.

Minutes from previous meeting

Members considered the draft minute of the meeting of 31 July 2024. The Board accepted the minutes as an accurate record of the meeting. The following updates were provided on the actions agreed at the last meeting.

The Education, Children and Young People Committee response was to be discussed during todays session, and has been included under item 3. The Supporting Learners' team were to finalise the progress report and issue to COSLA for their Children and Young People Board clearance. Following a meeting of the last Project Board, the joint Chairs confirmed with members a decision had been taken to delay publication in order to consider the ECYP committee report. The progress report was therefore not presented to the COSLA Children and Young People Board. The Supporting Learners' team will draft a joint letter for local authorities to support the improvement of communications and engagement. SG have started drafting this letter wnad will share with the Project Board for comment once it is ready. COSLA were to draft promotional text to be issued to networks alongisde publication of the ASL action plan and progress report, this has been postponed due to the delay of publication. The ASL action plan progress report was to be presented to the ASL Network, this was completed and comments have been included under item 4.

ASL action plan & progress report

Scottish Government introduced this item to the Board. The progress report was presented first to confirm the changes proposed at the previous Project Board meeting had been made. The action plan was then presented to the Board. This version has been updated since it was last presented at the July Project Board meeting, but has again been aligned with the Morgan Review setting out the actions against the 9 key themes from the review. Where an action has been completed, that has been noted. Where an action is ongoing, an update against the progress of the action has been provided.

Members discussed a paper and were reminded of the need to consider how the ECYP committee recommendations can be best reflected within the action plan. SG submitted their response to the ECYP committee report in July 2024. Within that response it was indicated the following recommendations could be assisted by strengthening actions in the ASL action plan:

“The Committee notes the lack of clarity in relation to placement requests to specialist schools and specialist units within mainstream schools and recommends that the Scottish Government works with COSLA to update the Code of Practice and ASL Action Plan to provide greater clarity on the support available to families.”  

“The Committee is concerned that there is not clarity for parents and carers in relation to ASL provision and what is available for their children both within mainstream and specialist settings. The Committee recommends that the Scottish Government and COSLA update the ASL Action Plan to address these communication issues, to ensure that pupils, parents and carers are able to fully understand what support is being made available to their child, ahead of any placing request for specialist provision being made and that local authorities provide information to families in an accessible format.”

Members were asked to consider how these commitments can be strengthened through the ASL action plan moving forward, and given the key focus on communication if these should be progressed by the ASL Project Board or the Operational and Communications sub-group. 

It was noted that both recommendations link into existing and ongoing work which is already set out in the action plan. Members noted that it would be beneficial to  look at  work that is currently underway, to remove the risk of duplication and consider steps to build on that. It was noted that the PB should also consider the ELC perspective for recommendation 1. It was then agreed by members that work on this area should be taken forward by the Project Board, not the sub-group, to ensure we have the widest possible contribution to the workstream.

Members approved the updated action plan and agreed to reflect the 2 committee recommendations by adding in additional text to the introduction, noting these will be progressed through existing actions in the action plan. The Progress Report and the updated Action Plan will now be presented to SG Ministers and to the COSLA CYP Board on 4 October 2024 for clearance.

Actions:

• SG to add additional text to the ASL Action Plan introduction to reflect the ECYP committee recommendations.
• ASL Action Plan and progress report to be presented to SG Ministers and COSLA CYP Board for clearance.

ASL Network

The ASL Network met on the 27 August 2024, with the progress report included as the main agenda item for discussion. The Network was grateful for sight of the progress report, noting a few comments particularly around the use of wording “recommendations, sub-recommendations, actions” and how it could perhaps be confusing to the reader. Members also discussed the presentation of impact within the progress report.

The ASL Network wanted reassurance of their views being accurately represented at Project Board Meetings and asked the Project Board to consider a robust mechanism to ensure that these views are consistently represented at meetings moving forward. Members proposed having a standing item added to Project Board agenda for the Network chair to update on behalf of the ASL Network. It was also proposed to have a future meeting including members of the Project Board and Network.

The Network also expressed their interest in having earlier sight of and an opportunity to contribute to the ASL Action Plan and next progress report. Noting the wide range of expertise represented on the network, and the potential for them to be able to reinforce certain areas of the action plan with work that perhaps hasn’t been seen by members of the Project Board, Project Board members were content the action plan be shared with the Network.

Action:

• ASL Network item to be led by the Network chair to be added to future meeting agenda’s.

Any other business

The SAGRABIS joint action plan on improving relationships and behaviour in schools, developed in partnership with teaching unions, COSLA, ADES and Education Scotland, was published in August 2024 following publication of the behaviour in Scottish schools research in November 2023 and a series of summits. The action plan contains 20 actions cutting across 8 themes. It was noted the two action plans are complementary and there is potential to join both pieces of work together to ensure the actions in each contribute to the outcomes of others. Members welcomed the opportunity to have a further discussion at the next Project Board meeting to allow for a more in depth consideration.

Action:

• SAGRABIS joint action plan to be added to the November Project Board meeting agenda.   

Date of next meeting

The Project Board will meet on the following date:

• 21 November  2024

 

Scottish Government