Scotland’s approach to special needs education is more inclusive than the rest of the UK – but it doesn’t always work in practice

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Across the UK, how children are identified with special educational needs, and how they are then supported, differs according to where they live. There are broad similarities in the approaches in Wales, England and Northern Ireland. But in Scotland things are done differently.

Northern Ireland, Wales and England define children with learning needs as those who have significantly greater difficulty in learning than their peers.