Transitional Stages
The legislation requires an exchange of certain information to take place between relevant agencies whenever a child or young person with additional support needs is approaching a transitional stage. Broadly speaking, there are four categories of transitional stage:
- starting a school for the first time (where the school is managed by or the place arranged by the local authority);
- moving from nursery to primary, or primary to secondary school;
- changing school for another reason (e.g. moving house; an exclusion from school etc.);
- leaving school and moving on to further or higher education; employment; training; community care etc.
Whatever the reason for the change of school, there ought to be some form of transition planning for children or young people with additional support needs.
An appropriate agency, is any one of the following:
- a Health Board;
- another local authority;
- Careers Scotland; and
- further or higher education institutions.
Strictly speaking, Careers Scotland and FHE institutions are treated as "appropriate agencies" for all purposes (e.g. a child may be eligible for a CSP because they require significant additional support from the education authority and also from Careers Scotland). However, this is most likely to be of relevance in the context of school leavers and transition planning. While social work and other local authority departments are not, strictly speaking, "appropriate agencies", the law is drafted such that the rules apply in almost the same way as they would to appropriate agencies.
Changes in School Education
There are two key stages for any transition, that is, 12 months before a transition is due to take place, and six months before a change in school education is due to take place.
First, 12 months (6 months for pre-school children) prior to a child’s or young person’s change in school education (or as soon as possible after the date is known) the education authority must seek relevant advice and information from appropriate agencies and from any other person thought to be appropriate by the authority. The purpose of the advice and information is threefold:
- to establish the child or young person’s additional support needs;
- to determine what provision for those additional support needs may be required; and/or
- to consider the adequacy of the additional support currently provided (if any).
The views of the child and parent or young person will also be sought in appropriate cases.
All of the advice and information, thus obtained must then be taken into account in making appropriate arrangements prior to the change in school education actually taking place.
No later than six months (three months in the case of pre-school children) prior to the change in school education, (or as soon as possible after the date is known) the authority must consider whether the following information is required by any appropriate agencies.
- the likely date of the change in school education;
- the additional support needs of the child or young person; and
- the additional support provided during the previous six months (three months in the case of pre-school children).
Where information is provided in this way, a copy of that information must be also provided to the parent or young person. Information must not be provided to appropriate agencies without consent of the parent or young person.
Future Needs Planning
The legislation also requires an exchange of certain information to take place between relevant agencies whenever a child or young person with additional support needs is approaching the date on which they plan to leave school.
There are again two key stages for this process, that is, 12 months before leaving school is due to take place, and six months before leaving school.
First, 12 months prior to a child’s or young person’s anticipated leaving date (or as soon as possible after the date is known) the education authority must seek information from appropriate agencies which may be relevant as to provision which is likely to be available to the young person from that agency upon their leaving school. The views of the parent or young person will also be sought.
The information and views thus obtained, together with any information as to provision likely to be available from the authority’s non-education functions e.g. social work, housing) must then be taken into account in considering the adequacy of the additional support to be provided to the child or young person prior to them leaving school.
No later than six months prior to the anticipated school leaving date, the authority must inform all of the appropriate agencies it thinks fit to, of the following:
- the likely date for the young person to leave school; and
- any other appropriate information as to the young person and their additional support needs.
The authority must also consider at the same stage what provision it is likely to make with regard to its non-education functions once the child or young person has left school. In so considering, it must have regard to the information listed above. This requirement essentially means that social work (or other departments in the Council) are treated as appropriate agencies in this context.
Once the young person has actually left school, the authority must provided confirmation of that fact to such appropriate agencies as it sees fit. Information must not be provided to appropriate agencies without consent of the young person or, as the case may be, parent.
In some cases this will be a simple process, requiring little more than a perusal of a few college or university prospectuses. In other cases it will be a more complex, multi-disciplinary exercise involving representatives from education, health, social work and further education institutions.