Five essential points

Inclusive practice is strengthening

Inclusive practice is strengthening across most schools through nurturing relationships, supportive environments and effective personalised planning frameworks.

Children and young people make good progress

Children and young people with Additional Support Needs (ASN) generally make good progress, particularly in primary schools and special schools, supported by targeted interventions, wellbeing provision and growing use of assessment data.

System pressures persist

System pressures persist, rising numbers and complexity of need of children and young people with ASN, staffing challenges and inconsistent access to specialist services continue to impact experiences and outcomes.

Children and young people’s voices need strengthening

Children and young people’s voices need strengthening, with individualised targets often too generic and insufficient influence from learners on decisions that affect them.

Universal practice must meet the needs of all children and young people

Universal classroom practice to meet the needs of children and young people with ASN needs to be better, through setting high expectations, clearer differentiation, stronger challenge and enhanced professional learning around neurodiversity, behaviour support and inclusive pedagogy.