If your child turns 16 between 1 March and 30 September, they can leave school after 31 May that year. If your child turns 16 between 1 October and the end of February, they can leave school at the start of the Christmas holidays that school year.

The Scottish Government has committed to offering all young people an appropriate place to continue education after the age of 16. This might mean:

Your child’s school should support them to consider what path is best for them. Transition planning should take place to make sure that you and your child feel confident in their next steps.

Our Post 16: What comes next blog, written by Lead Scotland, explores some of the opportunities for young people with additional support needs who are leaving, or have left, school.

Your child has the right to stay at school beyond age 16 if they attend:

If your child stays on at school, they continue to have the right to additional support for learning for as long as they remain a pupil. A young person should not be denied the opportunity to stay at school until the end of sixth year because of their age.

By law, there is no upper age limit to remain at school. However, pupils will usually only remain at school beyond age 18 if:

The organisation that takes place to make sure that your child is ready to take their first steps beyond school is usually called ‘transition planning’. Your child’s school should begin transition planning as soon as possible, but must start at least 12 months before your child is due to leave school.

Transition planning should include listening to your views and your child’s views about their next steps. It will usually involve meetings between you, your child, and their school.

Sometimes, other professionals may also be involved, such as careers advisers or educational psychologists. If other agencies such as the NHS or social work support your child now, or might after they leave school, then they should be included in planning, too.

If more than two agencies are involved in planning for your child’s transition, the local authority should appoint a lead professional to co-ordinate planning. This is a person who knows your child and who can be a single point of contact for you, your child and the other professionals. If your child has a co-ordinated support plan (CSP), the CSP co-ordinator (who will be named in the plan) should take the lead in ensuring that all relevant professionals plan together for your child leaving school.

No later than six months before your child is expected to leave school, the school or local authority must pass relevant information about your child’s support needs to the agencies who will support them in their adult life.

The local authority or school can only share this information with either:

If you or your child are concerned about what is planned for them after they leave school, then you can ask the school for a transition planning meeting to discuss your concerns and review the available options for your child. For example, this can be helpful if:

If you are unable to agree on the best way forward with the school, you may need to contact the local authority. Find out more on our page Solving problems with your child’s school. If you and your child feel that the school or local authority has not followed the correct procedures, your child also has the right to appeal (called ‘making a reference’) to the Additional Support Needs Tribunal. They can only do this while they are still enrolled at school. If your child is unable to understand how to do this, you can make the reference on their behalf. Find out more on our page on The ASN Tribunal.

You should first talk to your child’s school. You could ask for a transition planning meeting to discuss your child’s options.

At the meeting, you could:

If, after a meeting, you are still concerned, there are further steps that you can take. These are explained on our page Solving problems with school.

Your child has the right to stay at school after they turn 16 if they are at a local authority school, or a grant-aided or independent school where their place was funded by your local authority. If you feel that  the school wants them to leave when this is not what your child wants, there are steps you can take.

First, you should ask for a transition planning meeting with the school. This will give you the opportunity to discuss with them your child’s options. You (and your child, if they’d feel able to attend) can explain the reasons why they want to stay, and what they’d gain from this. The school can explain the reasons why they feel another option might be better. You can hopefully then come to an agreement about what should happen next.

If you’re not able to agree at a meeting, you can put your concerns in writing to the person with lead responsibility for support for learning at the school. Ultimately, if your child wants to stay on, they should be supported to do so. There are further steps you can take if you continue to disagree with the school on this, which are explained on Solving problems with school page.

The school and local authority must not discriminate against disabled young people by treating them less favourably than other pupils. They may be discriminating against a disabled young person if they do not allow them to stay on at school after 16 when non-disabled young people can do so. You can get advice on discrimination from the Equality Advisory and Support Service[.

Talking About Tomorrow

Talking about Tomorrow has lots of information and advice for parents and carers of children with additional support needs who are coming up to school leaving age. This includes information about financial and legal matters, for example guardianship and benefits.

Compass

Compass is an app for parents and young people with additional support needs, to help everyone with the move to adult life. It has lots of information about leaving school, employment, finance and health. It also has useful tools and trackers to help you with planning. See more about Compass at the end of this page.

LEAD Scotland

LEAD Scotland provides advice and information to anyone with a disability or health condition about attending further education, training or community learning.

Skills Development Scotland

Skills Development Scotland provides information on careers and post-school learning and training in Scotland.

Citizen’s Advice Scotland

Citizens Advice Scotland provides free, confidential, and independent advice on a range of issues, including benefits. You can find your local Citizens Advice Bureau on their website.

Self-directed Support Scotland

Self-directed Support Scotland provides information about self-directed support for people who use social care services.

COMPASS is free online tool. It is designed to help your child, and the people who support them, during periods of change. For example, leaving school to go to college, university or starting a new job

There are three versions of COMPASS available. These are designed for:

COMPASS can do more than just help your child figure out what’s important.

It can also help them to create a list of priorities to share with people, connect them with important information, and even allow them to anonymously share their experiences with others.

You can access all three versions of COMPASS by hitting the button below or scanning the QR code: