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What a pain...
The one (1) good thing about the clarification version of the ALS rules was that it expressly said that a "formal" (ie expensive) assessment wasn't needed, that we, as professionals, would know what was best for our learners...
But, yes, "I have a need" at/before enrolment, then assessing and setting out a plan to support that need before claiming any money is perfectly fine.
The import part of the rule change is that you can only claim LS funding where the learning difficulty or disability impacts their ability to complete the apprenticeship on which they are enrolled, and you must carry out an Assessment that confirms this and retain the documentary evidence that supports this.
A learners declaration may be used to screen for those who may need support, but you must undertake an assessment of their support needs related to the Apprenticeship they are undertaking prior to claiming LS funding.
Thanks both for the reply. It's just that word 'assessment' that I wanted clarification on. Currently students will declare a need and then we undertake a plan for support in how we can help remove those barriers whilst the learner is on course. We call it a learning support plan.
If by assessment, you mean us in SS&W determining the appropriateness of their support and documenting, that's fine and is what we do. It's whether by assessment, you mean an actual professional diagnostic assessment of need, for example a dyslexia assessment, which would need to be paid for and then documented.
I can't see that being the case, but I just wanted to clarify.
It relates to an assessment carried out by the Provider to identify the learners learning support needs, this may be a result of the learners declared support needs for their disability/learning difficulty or because of the provider identifying a need to additional support at any time during the programme.
HTH
Michael Willacy
Clarification of P84 and P85.1 for apprentice learning support
Created
Hello all, could I ask how you would interpret -
- P84 - Before a claim for learning support funding can be made, an assessment must be undertaken to identify whether an apprentice has a learning difficulty or disability that directly impacts their ability to complete the apprenticeship on which they are enrolled.
- P85.1 documented evidence demonstrating the apprentice’s learning difficulty or disability;
Is there an expectation that a formal diagnostic assessment should take place based on their need, and we need to document and evidence this for learning support? I find this hard to believe. Or would something like a simple initial learning support form suffice which outlines support need that the apprentice can declare and complete at sign up?
Once this need is declared by the apprentice, a more in depth learning support plan can then be made by student support and wellbeing to outline what support will look like based on their declarations.
Any help would be appreciated. The word assessment has thrown up some question marks!
Thanks,
Mike
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