by Philippa Stobbs OBE
Philippa Stobbs OBE is the recently retired Assistant Director for the Council for Disabled Children (CDC). Philippa’s work included being instrumental in the development of the Children and Families Act and decades of national advocacy for disabled children’s rights. She is an expert in the application of Equality Act 2010 for disabled children and in 2022 wrote the Equality Act Guide for Schools for the CDC.
Please share this with your school. Part one can be found here. At the end of this article you can find both parts as a free ebook. You can also listen to our recent podcast with Philippa about ten years of the CFA
In Part 1 of Ordinarily Available Provision: friend or foe? I looked at the requirements—yes, there are statutory requirements—and some of the practicalities involved in developing good ordinarily available provision (OAP). In Part 2, I want to think about what good looks like and some of the benefits of good ordinarily available provision.
What does good Ordinarily Available Provision look like?
It isn’t necessarily what you ‘see’ that makes it good, more how it’s developed, how it’s promoted and how it’s used. It’s only any good if everyone views it as their own local ordinarily available provision. A sense of ownership is likely to exist in direct relationship to the extent of input; the sense of having had a hand in shaping it.
Once a ‘trial draft’ has been published, it’s important that:
- everyone understands it’s being trialled and that there will be opportunities to feed back;
- schools are asked about any training needs they have in relation to what has been agreed;
- support services keep under review the appropriateness of what schools are expected to do without recourse to them; and
- parent carers continue to discuss the document and how it might be improved.
Good OAP is ordinarily available provision that is well used. In one local area, the working group said they wanted to see their ordinarily available provision document in every school, on every desk, well-used, even dog-eared, to reflect how useful it was proving.
Reviewing it after it has run for a year provides an opportunity to publish a revised version, but, in some senses, any published version is only ever the latest draft. Thinking about it in this way can help to keep it relevant to changing needs locally, and new research evidence nationally.
What difference does good ordinarily available provision make?
There are a number of benefits that can arise from good ordinarily available provision. It can lead to:
- More informed conversations between parents/carers and professionals:
If a parent seeks to engage with their child’s school about whether, or how, their child’s needs are being met, there is enormous potential for antagonism. It’s likely that parents are dissatisfied with what the school has so far offered, and it’s easy for schools to feel defensive. Ordinarily available provision can almost act as a third party in the room and can help to provide ideas and options and support a problem-solving approach.
In one local area, we were told: It has changed the conversation! And they meant for the better.
Research in the late noughties showed that more constructive discussions at earlier stages tended to lead to better relationships further down the track and, even where parents were appealing the decisions of the LA, the conversation continued.
- Greater consistency across schools:
In one local area, the specialist support services (yes, there are still areas that have specialist support services) told us that there were some schools that telephoned the service “when a child sneezed”, while others had held off too long and should have contacted them sooner for advice.
A careful follow-up with schools, once the local ordinarily available provision document has been published, can check for training needs, and support schools in implementing approaches that have been agreed, but with which they do not feel confident. At the same time, more appropriate requests to specialist services for support may mean that their time is better targeted.
- Enables more consistent decision-making:
Where all local parties have agreed that it is reasonable for schools to draw on a range of approaches, where they have contributed to and signed up to a document that is being kept under review, and where greater consistency between schools is developing, this tends to lead to greater consistency in decision-making about EHC needs assessments and plans.
In deciding whether to issue an EHC plan, the Code of Practice advises:
…local authorities should take into account whether the special educational provision required to meet the child or young person’s needs can reasonably be provided from within the resources normally available to mainstream early years providers, schools and post-16 institutions…
SEND Code of Practice [para 9.55]
Where there is agreement about what can reasonably be provided, this can lead to clearer criteria informing the decisions of the LA.
- Greater accountability:
In the same way, if OAP is developed involving a wide range of providers, services, parents, carers, and children and young people themselves, a more personal commitment tends to develop on the part of everyone who has been involved. Ultimately, this can lead to a stronger form of accountability to each other, the accountability of those who have sat around a table and agreed something together.
- Greater responsiveness to evidence:
Not everyone gets excited about “ordinarily available provision”! Yet I have seen professionals getting excited about how children were responding to different strategies—a creative buzz about how different approaches were, or weren’t, supporting learning for different children, all based on the evidence of teachers’ own eyes.
In this context, evidence can be the evidence of your own eyes and experience, your child’s eyes and experience, and your child’s teacher’s eyes and experience. This is all important and valid.
Evidence is also drawn from academic research and there is a growing range of collections of research evidence, including one most recently discussed on SNJ in a new research-informed MetaSENse database of interventions for pupils with SEND, alongside the longer-standing Education Endowment Foundation publication, Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools
Where schools are already using practice-based evidence and evidence-based practices, these are likely to inform, be incorporated into, and ultimately improve OAP.
Isn’t this all Utopian and totally unachievable?
Well, again, and annoyingly, I say, ‘It depends.’
Ordinarily available provision cannot solve all the challenges we face within SEND. But we do know that some of the most important things affecting progress and outcomes are the everyday practices within classrooms, and this is where OAP has a really important part to play.
Beyond the classroom, there are many factors affecting the way schools respond to children who learn differently from their peers, for instance,
- the values and culture of the school; how well schools are working with parents;
- the skills, experience and expertise of teachers;
- the support available to schools from local services (it was never envisaged that schools would do this on their own, read the Warnock Report);
- the funding.
But what could be achieved if, in addition to high quality ordinarily available provision in every local area, we had a curriculum and assessment system designed for all children, a workforce strategy designed to ensure every teacher was confident in making special educational provision and reasonable adjustments, schools confident they could call on specialist teachers when they were uncertain about what to do next, a health and social care system that gave priority to the best possible start in life for children and young people, and a high-level commitment to an education system that values and includes all our children?
Philippa Stobbs OBE, Autumn 2024
Please note: much of the experience of ordinarily available provision described here and in part 1, stems from my work with the Council for Disabled over many years, including, more recently: work commissioned by individual LAs; early years work supported by the DfE-funded EYSEND Partnership; and work supported by the DfE-funded REACh Consortium.
Also read:
- What’s happening with the SEND & AP Change Programme— November 2024 update
- How government-funded schools’ SEND training has young people’s experiences at its core.
- The Council for Disabled Children’s new Director on their work to implement the Government’s SEND Change Programme
- So SEND is “lose, lose, lose”? Not for these private sector winners in the DfE’s SEND Change Programme
- Commons committee lets the Department for Education off the hook—so we’ll do the scrutiny instead
- Too many children arrive in AP with no needs assessment—schools need to be more curious about the “why”
- More “bold” reform for SEND and more children in mainstream—but how mainstream is it really?
- Delivering better value in SEND? Much of a new review is based on deep and fatal flaws that may uproot the SEND system
The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reformsSeptember 9, 2026
From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled childrenAugust 28, 2026
Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child's rights to statutory SEND supportAugust 19, 2026
WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government's SEND proposalsSeptember 3, 2026
Don’t miss a thing!
Don’t miss any posts from SNJ – simply add your email address below. You must click the link in the confirmation email you’ll receive to activate your free subscription.
You can also keep up with us by following our
Want more? Be an SNJ regular donor!
SNJ is a non-profit and everyone who writes here does so voluntarily. We need your support to help us with costs by donating once or as a regular patron. Find out more here
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals - September 3, 2026
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children - August 28, 2026
- Have your say on the future of transport for disabled children and young people - August 25, 2026
Please share this article!
Discover more from Special Needs Jungle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
