Additional support for learning (ASL)

Throughout a child and young person's time at nursery and school, the adults working with them will routinely be reviewing their progress and considering their support needs. Every child and young person may need a little bit of support at some point and this is usually provided through learning and teaching in the nursery or class. This is called universal support. It is only when a child requires something different from other children that a staged intervention approach may be used.

All local authorities have a staged intervention and assessment process in place which enables practitioners to assess and meet pupils' learning needs.

The four stages are as follows:

Stage 1: Monitoring

Your child or young person might be unhappy in their early learning and childcare (ELC) setting or school, find building relationships with adults and making friends difficult or find following routines hard. 

Parents and carers and the adults working with them in their ELC setting or school will all work together to meet their needs.

Stage 2: Focussed intervention

Your child or young person might continue to be unhappy in their ELC setting or school and find building relationships with adults and making friends difficult. They might also find it hard to talk about how they are feeling and sometimes their behaviour will be unsettled. 

The adults working with your child or young person will talk about their concerns with members of management and might consider speaking to the Educational Visitor (EV) service or the additional support for learning teacher (ASLT) on how best to provide support. They may also consider speaking to other agencies, such as educational psychology and speech and language for further help.

Stage 3: Targeted intervention

Even with the supports detailed above your child or young person might still be finding things hard in their ELC setting or school.   

The adults working with your child or young person in their ELC setting or school, EV service or additional support for learning teacher, leadership teams, and specialist educational and health teams might be involved in providing support to your child or young person. It may be some or all of these people helping you and your child or young person.

Stage 4: Intensive intervention

Your child or young person will be where they will learn best but there may still be some things they are finding difficult.  They might need specialist care and support from the adults around them as they may have severe and complex needs. This might require specialist provision to help them to learn. It may also involve support from other specialist teams and agencies.

Find out more about the stages of intervention in our booklet: