A parent carer guide to ordinarily available provision in schools

Introduction

The Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP) guidance for schools document sets out the support that schools can provide to support learners with additional needs from ordinarily available resources. It is a tool for schools to use to help all children learn and access the curriculum in a way that suits them best.

Surrey County Council has been working with school leaders, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs), parents, carers and children to create revised guidance document for schools on OAP.

As part of the review process, we received feedback from parent and carers supporting the development of a parent/carer guide to OAP. We worked in with Surrey schools, and Family Voice Surrey, to arrange parent participation groups to establish this guide.

This guide is intended to provide helpful information for parents and carers about OAP in schools. We hope it will help you to navigate OAP and understand what support may be available to support your child in school.

Who is this guide for?

Parents and carers of children who attend a mainstream school.

The OAP guide for parents and carers aims to:

• Support parents and carers to understand who to talk to – who can help, when they are concerned about their child accessing the school curriculum
• Provide guidance for speaking with Teachers and school staff about children’s needs.
• Explain what OAP is and how it is used in schools alongside high quality teaching
• Share some of the support and strategies that schools may use to help children access the curriculum
• Provide clarity about the additional support available and the need for a formal diagnosis/EHCP

Who can help at school

• Class teacher - plan lessons, tailored to the needs of the children in the class. They provide a positive and engaging environment where children feel safe and supported. Class teachers assess children to monitor progress and identify next steps for learning.
• Teaching Assistants (TA) support teaching staff and children in the classroom. Some TA’s complete additional training so that they can further support teaching and learning in the school.
• Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) - coordinate Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision throughout school
• Headteacher and leadership team - work closely with children, staff, parents, governors, and local partners, stakeholders in the community. They ensure the school is a happy, healthy, and safe environment where children can learn and thrive. They monitor the quality of teaching, and report to the governors.
• School Governor helps schools to reach long-term plans and goals for school improvement. They are volunteers, with a range of backgrounds, knowledge and experience. Some Governors have children attending the school. Governors are not part of the day-to-day running of the school.
• Designated teacher  champions education of children looked after, and/or children who have experienced care. They have lead responsibility for writing and updating Personal Education Plans for children who are the looked after by the local authority.

What does high quality teaching in schools look like?

• A positive and safe environment where your child feels valued.
• Teaching that helps your child learn and grow.
• Regular updates and chances to talk about your child’s progress.
• Support during times of change, like moving to a new class or school.

How you can work with your child’s school

• Share what works well for your child at home.
• Ask about the support your child is receiving and how it’s reviewed.
• Discuss reasonable adjustments the school might make.
• Talk openly about your child’s strengths and challenges.
• Work together to find the best ways to help your child succeed.

What can you do if you are concerned

• Speak to your child’s class teacher
• If you are still concerned, you can ask to meet with the school SENCO
• You can also access the Surrey Local Offer website for useful resources, guidance, and support — including information on what to do if Ordinarily Available Provision is not meeting your child's needs.

Different types of SEND (often referred to as ‘area of need’)

• Cognition & Learning - refers to how some children learn at a slower pace than others their age, have difficulties with organisation and memory skills, or have a specific difficulty affecting one part of their learning such as literacy or numeracy.
• Social & Emotional Mental Health - refers to how some children have difficulties managing relationships, are withdrawn, or behave in ways that may disrupt their own and others’ learning
• Communication & Interaction - refers to speech, language and communication difficulties which make it difficult for them to understand language and to communicate effectively.
• Sensory & Physical - refers to children with visual and/or hearing impairments, or a physical need that means they must have additional ongoing support and equipment.

Speaking with your child’s school: When you talk to the school about your child’s needs, it can help to look at the support ideas in the OAP for Schools Guide. Not every school will use all the strategies in the OAP—some might use different methods. It is possible that some of the ideas are not right for your child. If you’re worried about the support your child is getting, you should speak to their class teacher. If you’re still concerned, you can ask to speak to the school’s SENCO. You can also find more help and information on the Surrey Local Offer website.

What is Ordinarily Available Provision?

OAP is a tool for schools to use to help all children learn in a way that suits them best. It makes sure every child can do well and grow. Schools do this every day with the resources they have, as part of good teaching and learning for everyone.

Definition of Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP)

OAP is part of a school’s approach to inclusive education based on individual needs. It removes barriers to progress and supports the development of every child. It forms part of everyday provision that schools are expected to deliver, within their resources, and is available to all children as part of high-quality teaching and learning practice.

Key principles of Ordinarily Available Provisions

Developed together with school SENCOs, the key principles describe the intention of OAP.

1. Empowers children and young people to be independent and develop their decision making in preparation for adulthood.
2. Takes a personalised approach that acknowledges success looks different for everyone.
3. Holds the views and aspirations of children, young people and their families central to planning, and ensures they are included in decision making.
4. Ensures assessment and intervention focus on identified needs and not a diagnosis. This refers to a need led approach that centres on inclusion and adaptations.
5. Is a whole school approach, where inclusion is fully integrated, not something extra.
6. Places a strong focus on inclusive practice where schools endeavour to remove barriers to learning, adapt to support progress and social inclusion, create environments that offer a strong sense of belonging for all learners.

How does OAP work in schools

Schools use lots of different ways to support children in schools, including:

• Building positive relationships with children and families.
• Providing extra help when needed (like different teaching methods or making small changes in and around the classroom).
• Making reasonable adjustments to remove barriers (like quieter spaces or special equipment).
• High-quality teaching tailored to each child’s needs.

Support around the child

Describes the process used in school to ensure the right support is put in place and reviewed at regular intervals.

The school is likely to use an approach called “Assess, Plan, Do, Review”. This is a cycle which may need to be repeated several times to identify the right support is in place to help your child make progress, feel happy and successful in school. Examples of support include:

• teaching your child new skills,
• teaching in a different way
• small changes to the physical environment
• adjusting the timetable
• additional support in class

The changes put in place should aim to make it easier for your child to be happy and successful in school. They should be reviewed at regular intervals to ensure they are appropriate and relevant.

Speaking with your child’s school: When you talk to your child’s school, you can ask about the support that is already in place. Find out when it was last reviewed, when it will be reviewed again, how it has helped your child so far, and what the next steps might be.

Reasonable adjustments

This section includes a description of reasonable adjustments, including what the law says, and seeks to clarify what is and is not ‘reasonable’.

Whilst it is not possible to say what is and is not reasonable, because situations and circumstances are different, schools will likely consider the following when thinking about the reasonable adjustments they can make:

• What is already in place?
• Cost and resources available to the school
• Potential impact/outcomes
• Is it practical?
• Health and safety requirements
• Impact on school standards (incl. academic, musical, sporting)
• Interests of other pupils and prospective pupils

Speaking with your child’s school: When you speak to your child’s school about reasonable adjustments, you can use the bullet points above to help guide your conversation.

How schools support learning through high quality teaching

This section looks at what schools deliver as part of high quality teaching.

'High quality teaching', as described in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice, is teaching that is tailored to meet the needs of children where progress:

• is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
• does not match or better the child’s previous rate of progress
• does not close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
• widens the attainment gap

High quality teaching is the first level of support, and is broken down into six areas:

• Working in partnership with Parents
• Pastoral Care
• Teaching & Learning
• Equipment & Resources
• Skills & Training
• Transition & Change

Teachers will think about the needs of all children when planning lessons, and may use the examples from the OAP, to support learning in all subjects

Speaking with your child’s school: When talking to your child’s school, share what is working well at home and how this could be applied flexibly in school. The examples below may be helpful.

Working in partnership with Parents

Communication is key, and working with parents and carers, who know their children best, supports schools to understand how they can help your child.

Some examples of how the school may do this include:

• A named person that you can speak to about your child’s needs and the concerns you may have.
• A home: school daily diary.
• Phones calls; at a mutually agreed time
• Regular opportunities to meet, as mutually agreed
• Share information about the support available.
• Ask you for your thoughts on how things are going and what you think will help as part of the assessment process and at other times.

Pastoral Care

Keeping children safe and making sure they are cared for and valued is essential to help children learn.

Some examples of how the school may do this:

• Children are listened to, heard, and treated with respect.
• The school is calm with a positive learning space, where children belong, feel welcome and valued.
• Children have a safe space to go when needed.
• Relationships are at the heart of the school culture. Relational and restorative practice is evidenced through the school values, behaviour and teaching and learning policies.
• Everyone in the school community is considerate of each other.

Teaching and learning

Teachers provide learning in a way that meets the different needs of children to support them to achieve their full potential.

Some examples of how the schools do this:

• Assessments, screening tools and standardised assessments to understand the child’s strengths and gaps in learning
• Share ideas and agree targets with parents, carers and children
• Provide challenge
• Vary the speed of teaching, and order of activities to ensure children can keep and stay interested

Equipment and resources

Equipment and resources, including Information and Communication Technology (ICT), that remove barriers to learning can make a big difference to how children learn and make progress in school.

Some examples of how the schools do this:

• Ear defenders - may help your child to focus their attention on a particular task by blocking out background noises.
• Fidgets - work by allowing your child to keep their hands busy which in turn supports better concentration and can help calm (reduce fidgeting) the whole body. Longer movement breaks may also be necessary for children and fidget resources do not take away from that need.
• Writing slope - support children to track words across the page (reading), and supports writing by reducing the strain on the body.

Skills and training

SENCOs coordinate Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision throughout school, alongside with other leaders, to support children with SEND to:

• participate meaningfully in the full life of the school
• achieve ambitious outcomes
• make successful transitions to their next steps

Teaching Assistants (TA) form a key part of the school, supporting teaching staff and children in the classroom. Some TA’s complete additional training so that they can further support teaching and learning in the school.

Your school may use the Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle of support, or similar, to monitor how they meet children’s needs.

Some examples of how the school can do this:

• Observation and assessment to identify strengths and gaps
• Assessment for access arrangements for examinations
• Encourage children to evaluate their own performance
• Measure the impact of interventions
• Identify alternative approaches to establish whether they may result in better outcomes for the child.

Transition and change

Transitions are part of everyday life, but they can be a worrying time for children and their families. It is important for everyone to work together to address concerns and where possible provide support throughout transition periods.

Some examples of how the school can do this:

• Get to know children before they join the school
• Ensure parents, carers and children know what to expect in advance
• Meet with and share information with the new or old provision. This includes Early Years providers
• A safe space to allow time to re-regulate and a person they trust to co-regulate with them.
• Support during unstructured times: safe spaces; structured games and clubs, use of library for vulnerable children.

How the school can support your child using OAP

This section is broken down into the four areas of need (different types of SEND):

• Cognition & Learning
• Social, Emotional Mental Health
• Communication & Interaction
• Sensory & Physical

It identifies some of the ways the school can support your child, based on their needs. All the ideas can be adjusted to support children based on their age and stage of development.

The examples of provision, strategies, approaches, adjustments, and specific interventions given in this section are a starting point for early support. Not all strategies will suit every child and should be used only when appropriate for the individual child.

Speaking with your child’s school: you may find it helpful to look at the examples of provision, strategies, approaches, adjustments, and specific interventions. Your school is likely to use these as a starting point to begin supporting your child as soon as possible. Be aware that not all strategies will be appropriate, but it may help to share your suggestions based on what you know about your child’s needs to help tailor these suggestions where appropriate.

Cognition & Learning

If your child finds it hard to concentrate and listen in the learning environment. The school may:

• Give information in short chunks, repeat, and give time for processing. Amount of time may vary depending on the child’s need and the task
• Work with your child to identify ways to develop organisational skills
• Talk to you about the strategies you have in place at home to support your child in this area, to understand if this can be adapted for use in school
• Offer movement breaks that allow your child time out to reset.

If you child has difficulties with learning, and despite appropriate support, they are not making sufficient progress, and are working below age related expectations, across the curriculum. The school may:

• Speak to you to understand what your child does outside of school so they can celebrate achievements in non-school related areas of their life.
• Build retrieval practice into lesson planning by providing opportunities to practise recall and remembering previously taught learning.
• For younger children - Involve families in pre-teaching activities such as looking at and talking about photographs together at home to introduce a topic, or sending home a word mat of key vocabulary for each topic
• For older children - Involve parents/carers by sharing updates on the work that is being covered in class and seek input where appropriate. This may be through online homework journals/class charts app/school gateway etc

If your child has specific learning difficulties, acquiring literacy skills. The school may:

• Avoid teaching practice that involves copying from the board
• Teach skills to develop fluency as well as accuracy, ensuring there are opportunities to practise skills
• Use teaching activities that provide opportunities to practise skills. Example, children bring a book from home/choose one from the library for reading, rather than only using phonics scheme books which limit texts to decodable words only
• Consider other learning aids that can support children’s learning during class times – examples, Dictaphones, pre-printed materials, cameras, additional time to complete a task.

Social & Emotional Mental Health

If your child has difficulties participating in school, is withdrawn or isolated, and appears significantly unhappy or stressed, the school may:

• Work with you to understand your experiences at home.
• Set up times to meet or speak regularly with you to support your child if they are masking their difficulties in school.
• Take time to find out about the child’s interests, strengths, things that are important to them outside of school.
• Allocate a key person/peer/adult/teacher to the child.
• Provide regular check-in and/or reassurance opportunities, where the child can go and speak to a trusted adult when they need to do so.

If your child is seeking connection by exhibiting distressed behaviours, e.g unable to follow instructions, unable to manage their emotions, causing damage to property. The school may:

• Work with you to understand what is going on for the child
• Work with you to identify the cause of the behaviour and agree ways to manage this at school and home.
• Provide consistent messaging with a flexible approach. When speaking to the child, the teacher may say ‘What can we do together to enable you to be in class and learning…’. This provides a consistent message. The approach to support this happening will vary depending on individual needs.
• Seek support from other professionals where necessary.
• Establish clear boundaries and expectations of all children. Where possible, provide opportunities for all children to be involved in the process of setting these.
• Support all children to understand that anger is a normal emotion and provide strategies to help them manage their feelings. Examples include daily exercise, walking away from a situation, taking a walk to calm down, spend time in the sensory room, provide a space to vent frustrations, someone to talk to.

If your child is demonstrating behaviours that reflect mental health concerns (anxiety, depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders). The school may:

• Contact you to raise a concern
• Speak with your child to understand what they think/feel is happening them
• Seek to understand the behaviour/s.
• Keep a log to look for any associated patterns, such as certain time of day, day of the week, lesson.

Communication & Interaction

If your child has difficulty saying what they want to say and being understood, including children with English as an additional language, the school may:

• Work with you to understand what is happening at home and school, and any techniques or strategies you may be using.
• Encourage you to become actively engaged with school life. Where English is an additional language, this could include sharing the language with the child’s class, providing key words and prompts.
• Check hearing has been tested.
• Check understanding by asking questions/requesting feedback.

If your child has difficulty understanding what is being said to them. The school may:

• Work with you to identify strategies to support language development at home and school.
• Use gestures that reinforce positivity. Examples include thumbs up, smile etc.
• Provide extra time for the child to try and find the words they want to say.
• Provide opportunities for practising language. Examples include circle time, small group work, when working with a partner.

If your child is overwhelmed and unable to speak due to the anxiety they are experiencing. The school may:

• Work with you to understand what is happening at home and to understand the strategies used at home to support and reassure the child.
• Focus on developing meaningful relationships, building and developing trust. Children should have access to a consistent key worker. This might include regular 1:1 sessions throughout the week.
• Acknowledge and celebrate other strengths to build self-esteem.
• Reassure your child that they will not be ‘called on’ in lessons to answer questions in front of the whole class.
• Provide opportunities for your child to talk when they are ready.

Sensory & Physical

If your child has a hearing impairment, including temporary conductive hearing loss e.g., glue ear, unilateral loss, mild or moderate loss. The school may:

• Take time to speak with your child to understand what they feel works well for them. Work to build a relationship where the child can speak to a trusted adult, when needed.
• Work with you to develop an understanding of what works well for the child at home and school.
• Use BSL where appropriate, and encourage you, the parent, to come into school to share your knowledge.
• Ensure seating in class has a clear view of teacher’s face and any visual material used (this may not be the same fixed place for all activities).

If your child has a visual impairment. The school may:

• Work to develop an understanding of your child and how they use their other senses to help them manage.
• Work with the you to understand what equipment/techniques/strategies could be reproduced within the school environment to support learning.
• Encourage your child to use visual aids/resources that have been prescribed such as glasses, magnifiers, big-print books, etc
• Make efforts to eliminate the risk of glare from the desk and whiteboard, laminated information/leaflets/handouts.
• Use enlarged print/magnified worksheets where appropriate.
• Worksheets/materials can be cut in strips and stapled together to reduce the amount of work shared in one go.

Sensory Sensitive & Sensory Seeking

Children may experience both sensitive and seeking behaviours, and their ability to manage their response may fluctuate throughout the day. Sensory differences - a guide for all audiences

Sensory Sensitive children and young people may be hyper-alert to sensory input.

If your child isdistracted by people walking around the classroom (staff and children), has strong response/reaction to loud or sudden noises, and/or becomes distressed by other people walking around/near or touching them. The school may:

• Reduce the amount of exposure to bright colours or lighting by positioning away from posters or lamps in class.
• Provide an accessible ‘calm’ space, such as a sensory room or classroom tent.
• Provide alternative seating in lunch hall/assembly

Sensory Seeking children and young people may be under sensitive to input and use behaviour to increase sensory exposure.

If your child finds it hard to understand when to give other people space, i.e. stands too close to others, walks with loud, heavy steps, or touches people and objects. The school may:

• Offer regular and frequent movement opportunities. This may include handing out resources and books or other ‘helpful’ jobs in class/school.
• Consider specific movement breaks that avoid overstimulation i.e. 10 star jumps or 2 laps of the field. These can be adapted and involve the whole class.
• Provide TheraBands, or suitable alternative, on the legs of chairs to help regulate the vestibular system while seated.

Where can I find more information?

In this section you will find links to further support and information, including details on the support available.