Ordinarily Available Provision

Ordinarily available provision (OAP) is the starting point for inclusive teaching, reasonable adjustment and the graduated response in mainstream schools in England. Schools should provide it from their usual resources before more individualised SEN Support or an EHCP is considered. The policy direction is set out in the Department for Education's 2023 SEND and AP Improvement Plan and developed further in the 2026 White Paper Every child achieving and thriving. Neither source removes current SEND duties: teachers still need high-quality teaching, clear adjustments, evidence of the graduated approach and timely SENCO advice when ordinary provision is not enough.

Ordinarily Available Provision means the everyday support a mainstream school should offer from its own resources. It includes adaptive teaching, reasonable adjustments and targeted help for learners with SEND or new barriers to learning.

The SEND Code of Practice says schools should start with high-quality teaching, adapted for each learner. The Education Endowment Foundation's SEND guidance report makes the same practical point. Scaffolding, explicit instruction, metacognitive strategies, flexible grouping and technology are normal classroom approaches before they become specialist interventions.

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What Ordinarily Available Provision Actually Means

The SEND Code of Practice says special educational provision is support that is additional to or different from what learners of the same age usually get. OAP is the day-to-day starting point below that line. It means inclusive teaching and routine adjustments should already be in place before support is counted as additional or different.

Scaffolding, Explicit Instruction, Cognitive Metacognitive, Flexible Grouping, Use of Technology. It illustrates what inclusive teaching looks like in practice." loading="lazy">

The Children and Families Act 2014, section 36, sets the legal test for an Education, Health and Care needs assessment: the local authority considers whether a child or young person has or may have SEN and whether it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made through an EHC plan. Schools should not treat OAP as a barrier to assessment; they should use it as clear evidence of what has already been tried and what impact it had.

Local authorities use slightly different labels. Hertfordshire describes OAP as the strategies, teaching approaches and adaptations that make up everyday inclusive provision. Merton describes ordinarily available provision as setting-based interventions and services that schools and settings should provide from their own resources. The shared point is consistency: staff should know, use and review routine adjustments before moving to a specialist referral pathway.

The three-tier model most local authorities now use looks like this:

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The EEF Five-a-Day for SEND

The EEF guidance report Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools highlights five approaches that fit well inside OAP. These are scaffolding, explicit instruction, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, flexible grouping and using technology. They do not replace specialist support. Instead, they are part of everyday teaching and help make specialist support more precise.

The EEF guidance is clear that extra support cannot compensate for weak everyday teaching. In OAP terms, this means the first improvement question is not "Which intervention should we buy?" but "What can every teacher consistently adapt, model, scaffold and review within normal lessons?"

Sensory circuits offer practical and affordable support. They use whole-class routines to help learners with sensory regulation and readiness for learning. Learners do not need an EHCP or referrals to use them.

Use these approaches as evidence-informed starting points, not guaranteed impact claims. Scaffolding, explicit instruction and metacognitive routines work best when the teacher checks the learner's response and adapts the support. OAP is therefore a cycle of teaching, noticing and adjusting, not a fixed menu of interventions.

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Evidence Needed Before EHCNA

This is the question SENCOs ask most frequently, and local authority guidance is frustratingly inconsistent. There is no statutory minimum number of APDR cycles before a request for an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment.

The legal test in section 36(8) of the Children and Families Act 2014 is simple. It asks whether the child "may have" SEN and whether it "may be necessary" to make a plan. Some authorities expect two full cycles; others accept one if the evidence is compelling. The key variable is not time, it is evidence quality.

Local authorities want to see APDR cycles in EHCNA requests. Targets, strategies, and outcomes must be clear. Show OAP application fidelity, which means using the agreed support as planned, not just keeping records. Parent and carer involvement is vital, learner views are essential, and existing professional involvement improves requests.

Devon's OAIP framework includes a clear statement that schools should "show the range and level of provision already being made". This should be "qualitative as well as quantitative". A provision map alone is not sufficient. You need to show what you tried, at what intensity, for how long, and what happened as a result.

A common misconception is that two school terms of provision is a statutory requirement before EHCNA. It is not. The requirement is evidence of a sustained and documented graduated response, which often takes two terms, but the time itself is not the measure.

Another misconception is that a diagnosis triggers an automatic right to an EHCP. It does not. A diagnosis may be part of the evidence, but the legal test remains whether a plan is "necessary."

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The Graduated Approach in Practice

The graduated approach is the SEND Code of Practice's framework for how schools respond to emerging need. It is a four-stage cycle: Assess, Plan, Do, Review.

At OAP level, this cycle operates within normal class teaching rather than as a separate SEN process. The class teacher leads it, with the SENCO advising. It is not additional to good teaching; it is how good teaching responds to individual need.

Here's an example: Amara, a Year 4 learner, struggles with reading. She receives the same lessons as others, but lags behind. Her teacher sees problems with phonics (phoneme-grapheme correspondence). Amara also loses her place when reading aloud.

Assess: The teacher uses the school's screening tool alongside observation notes from guided reading sessions. She speaks to Amara's parents, who mention that Amara also finds it hard to follow sequences of instructions at home. The SENCO reviews the picture and agrees it warrants a formal OAP response. There is no referral yet, no diagnosis sought, and no specialist involved.

Plan: The teacher sets two specific, measurable targets for the next six weeks. Amara will decode consonant clusters with 80% accuracy in isolation, and she will track text without losing her place using a reading ruler.

The plan records extra strategies for whole-class and guided reading. It also notes what the teacher will do differently and what Amara's parents will do at home. Amara is involved in agreeing what help she wants.

Do: Over six weeks, the teacher applies the planned strategies consistently. She uses differentiation strategies, adjusts her grouping during guided reading, and ensures Amara has access to a reading ruler and large-print text when needed. She records brief observations twice a week. OAP operates within the classroom, so no withdrawal or additional adult support is introduced at this stage.

Review: At six weeks, the teacher and SENCO review impact against the targets. Amara has improved her decoding accuracy from 43% to 71%. She has not yet reached 80%. The cycle repeats: new targets are set, strategies are adjusted, parents are updated.

This second cycle produces fresh evidence. After two cycles, Amara may have made insufficient progress despite consistent OAP. If so, the SENCO begins to consider whether SEN Support is needed, with its additional resources and formal provision map.

The graduated approach is not a linear sequence from OAP to EHCP. A learner may move between tiers in both directions. A learner on SEN Support who responds well to targeted intervention may return to OAP. The cycle is iterative, not a conveyor belt.

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What Ofsted's November 2025 Framework Changes

Ofsted's Education inspection framework for use from November 2025 includes inclusion as one of the evaluation areas. It also uses report-card grades such as expected standard, strong standard and exceptional. This makes SEND and inclusion more visible in inspection reports, but it does not create a separate statutory OAP checklist.

For schools, the practical implication is that OAP has to be observable in classrooms, not just written into a SEND policy. Inspectors will look at how well learners with SEND, disadvantaged learners and learners known to social care can access the curriculum, participate and receive support that matches their needs.

The 2026 White Paper strengthens the direction of travel. It says National Inclusion Standards should guide how schools meet children's needs by 2028, and that national SEND and inclusion training will be made available. Schools should prepare now, but should not invent legal deadlines that are not in the source.

For inspection, SENCOs should gather a short evidence portfolio. Include three or four anonymised APDR case studies and a summary of staff training on adaptive teaching. Add examples of how teachers identify needs through everyday formative assessment, meaning day-to-day checks. This work uses systems the school already has.

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Building a Whole-School OAP Framework

OAP fails when it is understood only by the SENCO. It works when every teacher knows what it means for their classroom. They must know what to do without referral and when to seek SENCO advice.

Building that shared understanding requires three things. These are: a clear audit of current provision, structured staff training, and a monitoring system that does not create unreasonable workload.

Audit: Start by mapping what your school currently provides against the four areas of need in the SEND Code of Practice. These are: Communication and Interaction, Cognition and Learning, Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH), and Sensory and/or Physical needs.

For each area, ask three questions. What adjustments are available to all learners without referral? What strategies are teachers trained to use?

What documentation currently captures this? Surrey's OAP guidance provides a detailed framework for this audit, organised by area of need and age phase.