Supporting Children's Learning code of practice: consultation

Annex B Co-ordinated Support Plan Template

1. The Additional Support for Learning (Co-ordinated Support Plan) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2005 ^[88] (Scottish Statutory Instrument 2005 No. 518) set out as below what the co-ordinated support plan must contain and they set out in the Schedule a template or form for the co-ordinated support plan.

The plan

3. -(1) Every plan must-

(a) be in the form set out in the Schedule to these Regulations or a form substantially to the same effect;

(b) contain information on-

(i) the name, address, contact telephone number, date of birth, gender, preferred language or form of communication, school currently attended and date of entry to that school of the child or young person to whom the plan relates;

(ii) the name, address, contact telephone number and relationship to the child or young person to whom the plan relates of each parent and that parent's preferred language or form of communication;

(iii) a profile of the skills and capabilities of, and any other relevant information relating to the child or young person;

(iv) any views on the plan expressed by the child or young person and by a parent of the child or, where applicable, the young person;

(v) the review timetable for the plan in accordance with the provisions of section 10 of the Act; and

(c) be dated and signed by a duly authorised officer of the education authority.

(2) Every plan continued following review under section 10 of the Act must contain such amendments of the information specified in paragraph (1)(b) as the authority consider necessary or appropriate in consequence of the review of the plan and retain such other information from the then current plan as the authority consider relevant to the future provision of additional support for the child or young person.

2. Regulation 3(1)(a) allows education authorities a measure of flexibility over the appearance of the co‑ordinated support plan when it states "..or a form substantially to the same effect.". In other words, provided the contents of the plan contain the information required under Regulation 3 education authorities are free to alter, for example, the text font used in terms of type of font, weight of font ( bold or normal) or whether block or lower case letters are used (although extensive use of block capitals is not recommended). They are free too to alter the size of the boxes used to contain information and are free to alter the orientation of the document between landscape or portrait. What is important is that the plan is presented in a way that makes it easy for those using it to access the information it contains.

3. The template which follows switches orientation between portrait and landscape in order to accommodate the comments made within each section.