In Scotland, the law sets out clear duties for professionals to ensure children and young people with additional support needs (ASN) can access education. The main legislation is the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, as amended. It requires schools and local authorities to: 

Professionals should follow the Supporting Children’s Learning: Code of Practice for guidance on how to meet these statutory duties. This guidance covers assessment, planning, delivery, review, and when a Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP) should be considered for learners with complex, multi-agency, or long-term needs. 

Other relevant legislation includes: 

Together, these laws and guidance ensure support is inclusive, personalised, and focused on positive outcomes for every learner. 

You can view a full list of official publications relevant to the education system in Scotland on our page Policy, Legislation and Guidance.

Planning is an ongoing process that helps you keep track of children and young people’s learning and development.

Planning is part of an ongoing cycle, which involves:

You should always involve children and young people and their parents or carers in planning, as they will often be able to explain what they need help with and when support is working or not working for them.

It can be easy to focus so much on the process that creating the plan can feel like an end in itself. It is important to remind yourself that the purpose of planning is to provide the right support at the right time for your learners.

Good planning helps everyone. It helps:

Having a written agreement of the learner’s educational objectives, the support needed to help them achieve those objectives, and when their progress will be reviewed, helps to avoid disagreement and leads to better communication between everyone involved.

Regular reviews of a support plan helps monitor a learner’s progress over time and allows for reflection on whether the agreed strategies have been effective.

Most importantly, effective planning leads to the right support being put in place as soon as possible, which leads to better outcomes for children and young people.

All local authorities make their own arrangements to meet the support needs of children and young people in their area. These arrangements are often called ‘staged intervention’. Staged intervention involves setting out a set number of levels of intervention to help education professionals decide what level of support and what type of plan a learner might need.

Sometimes a child or young person, or their parents or carers, may ask you why they have a certain plan or are on a certain level of intervention. You should be able to find out more about how support is planned in your area from your local authority website , or you can ask your school leaders for information on this.

You may also wish to signpost parents and carers to our factsheet on Planning your child’s support .

Planning will look different depending on your learners’ individual needs, and the approach your nursery, school or local authority takes.

The day-to-day planning and monitoring of each learner’s progress is called ‘personal learning planning’ (PLP). All children and young people should have some PLP, with updates for families provided at parents and carers evenings.

If a child or young person needs extra help with their learning, they may need more individualised planning.

There are several levels of educational plans, wellbeing-focused plans and specific plans for children and young people with healthcare needs or who are living in care. Different local authorities can also use different names for education and wellbeing plans, but you may have heard of the following:

Individualised education plans (IEPs) – written plans for individual pupils who need more targeted support.

Co-ordinated support plans (CSPs) – the only statutory education plan. CSPs are used to co-ordinate support for a learner when they need a lot of help from a number of different agencies.

For more information, see our page on Co-ordinated support plans. 

Child’s plans – plans for children and young people who have a wellbeing need or who need support from specialist agencies. Often a CSP or an IEP will be incorporated into a child’s plan if, as is often the case, the child or young person has additional support needs as well as a wellbeing needs.

It is best if you familiarise yourself with your area’s approach to planning and what they use plans for. That way you can understand what your role is in delivering any planned support and answer questions from children and young people or their families. Senior colleagues will also be able to help you with this.

The aim of assessment arrangements is to make sure learners are given equal opportunity to demonstrate the knowledge and understanding they have achieved, whatever their additional support needs. 

When a learner is preparing for exams or assessments, any arrangements put in place for them should be part of their overall additional support for learning.  

Support should not be introduced just for an exam. It should reflect what the learner already uses day-to-day in their learning. 

In practice, this means: 

It’s important that staff, learners and families work together to agree what support is needed. 

For more information about assessment arrangements, including how to apply and what evidence is needed, Qualifications Scotland have page giving guidance and support About assessment arrangements and an Assessment Arrangements Toolkit for professionals. 

Your role in planning a child or young person’s support will vary depending on your role within your school or nursery.

Teachers and nursery practitioners are expected to plan all children and young people’s learning and monitor their progress through personal learning planning.

If you are an early learning and childcare practitioner or a primary school teacher, you may be asked to contribute to planning meetings with children, parents, carers and other professionals. This is because you have day-to-day knowledge of a learner’s needs and may be significantly involved in providing their support.

If you are a subject teacher in high school or a pupil support assistant, you may be asked to provide information on a learner’s progress and any difficulties they face. This will help ensure that any planning for their support takes full account of their needs.

Usually, it will be a senior staff member (such as a deputy head or principal support for learning teacher) who will take responsibility for developing, communicating and reviewing learners’ support plans. However if you can see a child or young person is struggling with their learning, and may need more or different support, discuss with them and your colleagues whether a review meeting might be helpful.