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In Wales, support for children who need extra help to learn is called Additional Learning Needs (ALN). The term replaced "special educational needs" (SEN) under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, which was phased in from 2021 and rolled out across all year groups by the 2024/25 school year.
A child or young person has ALN if they have a learning difficulty or disability that calls for additional learning provision. The system runs from age 0 to 25 and is designed to be one continuous framework, so the move from school to post-16 education is handled within the same plan.
Most ALN is identified by the school, which must designate an ALNCo to coordinate provision. Health bodies and local authorities also have duties to identify and refer children, particularly the under-fives.
Every child or young person with ALN has an Individual Development Plan (IDP), a single statutory plan that replaced Statements and individual education plans. The IDP describes the child’s ALN and the additional learning provision required, and the body that maintains it (the school, or the local authority for more complex needs) must secure that provision.
IDPs are reviewed regularly. If you disagree with a school’s decision about ALN or an IDP, you can ask the local authority to reconsider it; decisions made by the local authority can be appealed to the Education Tribunal for Wales. The statutory ALN Code sets the timescales: a school must decide whether a learner has ALN, and if so give them an IDP, within 35 school days; a local authority has 12 weeks. It also sets out what an IDP must include.
Legal framework: Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018. Schools and further education colleges decide whether a learner has ALN and prepare and maintain most IDPs, and each school designates an ALNCo (Additional Learning Needs Coordinator). Your local authority maintains IDPs for learners whose support is too complex for the school or college to secure, for looked-after children, and in some other cases, such as children not at a maintained school or college. The tribunal for ALN appeals is the Education Tribunal for Wales.
Special schools do not admit by distance or catchment. Places are usually arranged by the local authority through an Individual Development Plan (IDP) that it maintains. Only a local-authority IDP can name a school.
No — Wales has replaced the SEN system with Additional Learning Needs (ALN) under the ALN Act 2018. If you see "SEN" used about a Welsh school it is outdated terminology. The Welsh framework uses ALN, an Individual Development Plan (IDP) and an ALNCo.
The Individual Development Plan (IDP) replaced Statements and individual education plans. It is Wales’ equivalent of England’s EHCP, Scotland’s CSP and Northern Ireland’s Statement, but it is a distinct legal document under Welsh law.
For most learners the school maintains the IDP, coordinated by its ALNCo. The local authority maintains the IDP for children with more complex needs and in certain other circumstances set out in the ALN Code.
This guide is written to explain Wales's ALN framework in plain English and is AI-drafted from the official sources above. It is general information, not legal advice — always check the current position with your school and your local authority.