Overview

The Additional Learning Needs Code for Wales provides the statutory system for meeting the additional learning needs (ALN) of children and young people. 

Its Person-Centred Practice means it places the learners’ views, wishes and feelings at the heart of the process of planning the support required to enable them to learn effectively and achieve their full potential.

Its rights-based approach places the views, wishes and feelings of the child, child’s parent or young person at the centre of any planning and provision of support; and the child, child’s parent or young person is enabled to participate as fully as possible in the decision making processes and has effective rights to challenge decisions about ALN, ALP and related matters.

Additional Learning Needs

Definition according to the ALN Code for Wales:

(1) A person has additional learning needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability (whether the learning difficulty or disability arises from a medical condition or otherwise) which calls for additional learning provision.

(2) A child of compulsory school age or person over that age has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she—

(a) has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or

(b) has a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities for education or training of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream maintained schools or mainstream institutions in the further education sector.

(3) A child under compulsory school age has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she is, or would be if no additional learning provision were made, likely to be within subsection (2) when of compulsory school age.