The graduated approach involves a four step cycle of asses, plan, do, review. This process starts at the whole school level. Teachers are continually assessing, planning, implementing and reviewing their approach to teaching all children, making adaptations where needed. These small changes and adaptations should be informed by the schools’ ordinarily available inclusive provision offer.
Once a special educational need has been identified, the graduated approach should become increasingly personalised, with more frequent review.
Where a pupil is identified as having SEN, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place. This SEN support should take the form of a four-part cycle through which earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised with a growing understanding of the pupil’s needs and of what supports the pupil in making good progress and securing good outcomes. This is known as the graduated approach. It draws on more detailed approaches, more frequent review and more specialist expertise in successive cycles in order to match interventions to the SEN of children and young people.’
SEND Code of Practice 6.44
The graduated approach should not be considered a single, linear event but a continual cycle of assessment and planning. Individualised assessments will support a growing understanding of the child and young person’s strengths as well as their barriers to learning, and this will inform the provision and support put in place. This may lead to a greater level of support or adaptation, and may result in a greater number of professionals involved, alongside the child or young person and their family. Regular reflection on the impact of any provision and support will ensure that the most effective approaches are used to meet the child or young person’s needs.
Principles of the graduated approach
Assess, Plan, Do, Review
The graduated approach involves an ongoing cycle of assess, plan, do, review to ensure that the support provided is effective and tailored to meet individual need.
Assess
Identify the child or young person’s strengths and needs
Use various approaches to clearly identify barriers to learning including teacher and diagnostic assessment, observations, discussions with key staff, behaviour, attendance data.
Importantly, ensure the views of the child or young person and their family are listened to and used to inform any next steps.
Plan
Consider what provision is required to meet the identified needs. Ensure this is carefully planned and delivered through purposeful and intentional strategies and approaches. Use the targeted support framework to support with this.
Involve the parent carer and child or young person in the planning stage, alongside the class teacher or key adult and any external agencies that are involved.
Set clear outcomes and provision to support the identified needs/barriers.
Do
Implement the agreed plan
The class or subject teacher should remain responsible for working with the child or young person on a daily basis. (SEND Code of Practice 6.52)
All staff supporting the child or young person should regularly monitor the impact of any support or intervention.
Review
Review the child or young person’s progress towards the agreed outcomes. This should involved class teachers, support staff, parent carers and the child or young person.
Evaluate the impact that the provision has had on the child or young person. What has worked? What hasn’t worked? What else is needed?
Determine if any adjustments are required. Carry out further assessment if necessary and plan the next steps of support.
Person-centred approach
The child or young person should remain at the centre of any assessment or planning process and they should be involved in any decisions that are made about them.
Schools and settings must ensure that they seek the child or young person’s views and use these to inform theassess, plan, do, review cycle. The child or young person should be involved in setting their outcomes and planning the provision and strategies that will be used to support them. They should also be involved reviewing the impact of this support, and contribute to decisions that are made about next steps.
Person centred planning aims to put children and young people at the centre of planning and decisions that affect them. When children are meaningfully involved, this can change their attitude, behaviour and learning and make them active partners who work with adults to bring about change.
Council for Disabled Children
Working in partnership with families
Parent carers should be involved throughout the assess, plan, do, review cycle. Parents often know their child the best, so their views should be listened to and valued when planning, implementing or reviewing any additional support.
Regular discussions with the family will support the assess, plan, do, review cycle and inform any next steps or decision regarding provision, additional support or outside agency involvement. It is important that the views of the family are listened to, and they are made to feel equal partners in their child’s education.
See the working with parent carers section of the Ordinarily Inclusive Education Framework for some ideas on involving families in discussions and decisions.
Working with external agencies
In some cases, it may be important for the setting to engage with external agencies such as SEN or inclusion support teams, Educational Psychologists (EPs) or health professionals to help inform assessment of need. Professional input should only be sought with parental consent.
External agencies can provide additional advice to support with the most appropriate provision or intervention for an individual and may support with evaluating and reviewing progress and identifying next steps. It’s important any external advice is shared with both the family and key staff who need to know, so that the advice can be implemented and used to inform provision.
