Short-life Working Group on Co-ordinated Support Plans (CSPs): Final Report

Additional support for learning

All children and young people need support to help them learn and develop. Children and young people who require additional support should be supported in school to reach their full potential. Education authorities have legal duties^[4] to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. A child or young person has an additional support need (ASN) if they need extra or different support from their peers to benefit from their education, in school or in Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) settings. Children and young people with additional support needs will have their needs identified and the measures in place to support them documented in some form of plan.

Education authorities use a range of planning mechanisms to support the needs of children and young people in ELC settings and in schools. Education Authorities have different names for these plans. Personal Learning plans (PLPs), Individualised Educational Programmes (IEPs), Child's Plans (CYPPs, YPPs) or Looked After Plan (LAC) are some examples of these.

The majority of children and young people's needs are met through the universal level of support. This includes learners who have additional support needs and whose needs are met through differentiated planning to support different learning and teaching approaches. Some pupils, with a more specific or complex profile, may require more detailed or multiagency planning.

When a multiagency plan is in place to support a pupil to achieve educational outcomes, this may require more detailed coordination by the school. This is when a Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP) is considered to ensure that the statutory element of the plan in place is documented in a specific way.

A CSP requires to be a standalone statutory document, however, children and young people may have more than one plan. Where this is the case, the plans should align and interact with each other as part of a single planning process.

This may be particularly relevant for children and young people who are looked after. The 2004 Act states that a child or young person who is looked after has additional support needs, unless the education authority determine that they do not require additional support in order to benefit from education.^[5] Any looked after child or young person who has been identified as having additional support needs should be automatically and regularly considered for a CSP.

The CSP is the only statutory education plan in Scotland. A child or young person may have more than one plan when they are at school – for example, they may have a child's plan and a CSP.

Where the legal tests are met for a CSP, the child or young person must have a CSP - even where other plans are in place.