Making Sure Every Learner Can Succeed
In the FE and Skills sector, our goal is to help every learner and apprentice achieve their potential. A crucial part of this is making 'reasonable adjustments' - a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010, but more importantly, a cornerstone of truly inclusive practice. It involves anticipating and removing barriers for disabled learners and apprentices, ensuring they can access and participate in education and training on an equal footing with their peers.
Effective implementation goes beyond a simple checklist. It requires a whole-provider culture of awareness, communication, and responsiveness to individual needs. When done well, reasonable adjustments are a key enabler of progress and achievement.
Identifying the Need for Adjustments
A support plan is only as good as the information it's built on. A robust process for identifying needs is the essential first step. This should be a continuous process, not a one-off event at enrolment.
- Start early: Use your application and enrolment process to sensitively ask about support needs. Ensure this information is passed securely to the relevant curriculum and support teams before the course starts.
- Listen to the learner: The learner is the expert on their own condition and what helps them. Foster an environment where they feel safe to disclose needs and discuss support, both at the start and throughout their programme.
- Use initial assessment insight: Go beyond just assessing English and maths levels. Use initial assessment activities to observe how learners approach tasks and identify potential needs for support that may not have been formally disclosed.
- Encourage staff observation: Teaching and support staff are uniquely placed to notice when a learner or apprentice is struggling. Create clear, simple referral pathways for staff to flag concerns and access specialist support.
Practical Adjustments in Teaching and Assessment
Adjustments should be tailored to the individual and the specific demands of their programme. They are about enabling access, not lowering academic or technical standards. Consider a range of options:
- Changes to teaching delivery: This could include providing slides or notes before a session, recording lessons for later review, breaking down complex instructions into smaller steps, or allowing extra thinking time before asking for a response.
- Adapting learning resources: Ensure materials are accessible. This might mean providing documents in large print, on coloured paper, in an electronic format compatible with a screen reader, or providing transcripts for video content.
- Modifying assessment methods: Common adjustments include extra time, rest breaks, or the use of a reader or scribe. It could also involve allowing an assessment to be completed on a computer or, where appropriate, changing the format - for example, a professional discussion instead of a written essay to assess knowledge.
- Environmental and equipment changes: This could be as simple as ensuring a learner is seated in a specific part of the room, or it might involve providing specialist software, ergonomic equipment in a workshop, or ensuring a quiet space is available for breaks.
Implementing and Reviewing Adjustments
Identifying a need is only half the battle. Effective implementation and review are what make the difference to the learner's experience and achievement.
- Ensure clear communication: The learner's support plan must be shared with all relevant staff, including teachers, trainers, assessors, and work placement supervisors. A 'tell us once' approach is vital to avoid the learner having to repeatedly explain their needs.
- Invest in staff training: Equip your teaching and support staff with the knowledge and confidence to implement adjustments effectively and consistently. This is a core part of professional learning.
- Review the impact regularly: An adjustment is not a 'set and forget' instruction. Build checks into regular progress reviews. Ask the learner directly: Is this working? Is it helping you learn? What else could we do?
- Keep clear records: Documenting the agreed adjustments and their impact is essential for good internal quality assurance and for providing evidence of the support provided. This helps you understand what works and demonstrates your commitment to inclusion.
Where this fits in QualityHero
Proactively managing reasonable adjustments is central to quality. It provides tangible evidence for the whole-provider evaluation area of Inclusion and has a direct impact on provision-type judgements for Curriculum, teaching and training and Achievement. Within QualityHero, the Toolkit Areas module can be used to gather examples of effective practice and learner voice on the support they receive. Any resulting staff training needs or required investments can be logged and tracked as actions within your QIP.
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