The graduated approach is the four-stage cycle mainstream schools use to identify and support special educational needs: assess, plan, do, review. Each turn of the cycle refines what a pupil needs, with support becoming more specific if earlier steps have not worked. It runs before, and often instead of, any statutory assessment.
Where the graduated approach sits
Support in a mainstream secondary school is layered rather than binary. Broadly:
- High-quality teaching for everyone. The first and most important layer. Well-designed lessons that anticipate difficulty remove the need for a great deal of individual intervention.
- SEN Support. Where a pupil needs provision that is additional to or different from what is ordinarily available, the school puts it in place and runs it through the graduated approach.
- Statutory assessment and an EHC plan. Where needs are more complex and cannot be met from the school's own resources, a request can be made to the local authority for an education, health and care needs assessment.
The graduated approach is the engine of that second layer, and it is where the great majority of SEND support in mainstream schools happens.
The four stages
Assess
The school builds a clear picture of the pupil's needs. This typically draws on classwork and assessment data, teachers' observations across different subjects, the pupil's own view, the parents' view, prior attainment and any earlier records, and — where relevant — advice from external specialists.
The purpose of this stage is to move from a symptom to a cause. "Falling behind in English" is a symptom. It could be a reading difficulty, a working-memory difficulty, an attention difficulty, a language difficulty, a hearing problem, anxiety, or simply large gaps from an interrupted earlier education — and each of those leads somewhere different.
Plan
The school agrees, and records, what will be put in place: the specific support, who will deliver it, how often, for how long, and — crucially — what outcome it is meant to produce. Parents should be told what has been agreed, and the pupil should understand it too.
A useful plan is specific and measurable. "More support in maths" is not a plan. "Twenty minutes of small-group number-fluency work three times a week for one term, aiming for X" is.
Do
The support runs, and — importantly — the class teacher remains responsible for the pupil's progress even where a teaching assistant or specialist is delivering part of the provision. The SENCO supports and oversees; they do not take over ownership of the child's learning.
Review
At an agreed point, the school looks at whether the support worked. Did the outcome move? What does the pupil say? What do the parents notice at home? The review then feeds directly back into a fresh assessment, and the cycle turns again — with the support becoming more targeted, more intensive, or simply different if the first attempt did not land.
Why the cycle matters more than any one intervention
The value of the graduated approach is not that any particular intervention is powerful. It is that the approach refuses to let ineffective support continue unexamined.
Without a review stage, a school can run the same intervention for two years while a pupil makes no progress, because nobody ever asked whether it was working. With one, an intervention that has not moved the outcome is replaced rather than repeated. Each cycle should leave the school knowing more about the pupil than it did before.
That is also why parents should ask about the cycle, not just about the support. "What is he getting?" is a weaker question than "what was the outcome we agreed, and when do we look at whether it moved?"
What parents should expect
You should reasonably expect to be:
- told when the school identifies a special educational need and puts SEN Support in place;
- involved in deciding what the support is, rather than informed after the fact;
- given specifics — what, how often, delivered by whom, aiming at what;
- invited to review, typically termly, at a meeting or conversation dedicated to it rather than squeezed into a general parents' evening;
- listened to about home evidence, which is frequently the most useful information nobody else has.
If any of these is missing, asking for it is entirely reasonable and usually all it takes.
Useful questions at a review
- What outcome were we aiming for, and did it move?
- What evidence are you using to judge that?
- What is he doing differently in lessons now compared with last term?
- If this hasn't worked, what changes next — and why that?
- What can we do at home that supports the same outcome rather than a different one?
The last question matters more than families expect. Support pulling in one direction at school and another at home is a common and avoidable waste of effort.
When the cycle is not enough
Where a pupil's needs cannot be met through the school's own provision, despite the graduated approach having been properly run, a request can be made to the local authority for an education, health and care needs assessment. Parents can make that request themselves; so can the school.
Two things are worth knowing. First, a well-documented history of graduated-approach cycles is strong evidence in that process — it shows what has been tried and what it produced. Second, most pupils with special educational needs are supported effectively without an EHC plan, so the plan is not a target to aim for by default. It is the right route when the level of need genuinely requires it.
Frequently asked questions
What does "assess, plan, do, review" mean in schools?
It is the four-stage cycle at the heart of the graduated approach to special educational needs. The school assesses what the difficulty actually is, plans specific support with an agreed outcome, delivers it, and then reviews whether the outcome moved — feeding what it learned back into the next cycle. The point is that support is refined by evidence rather than simply continued.
Is SEN Support the same as an EHC plan?
No. SEN Support is provision the school puts in place from its own resources when a pupil needs something additional to or different from ordinary teaching, and it runs through the graduated approach. An education, health and care plan is a statutory document issued by the local authority after a formal assessment, for pupils whose needs cannot be met that way. Most pupils receiving SEND support in mainstream schools are at SEN Support.
Should I be told if my child is put on SEN Support?
Yes. Parents should be informed when a school identifies a special educational need and decides to provide support, and should be involved in agreeing what that support is and how it will be reviewed rather than simply told afterwards. If you have not had that conversation, ask the SENCO for it directly.
How often should support be reviewed?
Termly review is the common pattern in secondary schools, though the right interval depends on the type of support — some interventions need longer to show any effect. What matters more than the exact frequency is that a review date was agreed at the planning stage, that it actually happens, and that it changes something when the outcome has not moved.
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