How are schools affected by ever-rising ASN rates?

As has been widely reported and discussed, Scotland’s mainstream schools have experienced an astonishing rise in the number of pupils with some form of additional support needs (ASN).

In 2007, the year in which the SNP first took office, just 5% of school pupils were considered to have ASN; in the most recent data, that figure had jumped to 43%, with no expectation that the rate of increase is likely to decline any time soon.

As would be expected, ASN rates are higher in secondary schools (48.8%) than they are at primary level (36.9%).

Scotland’s approach to ASN is intentionally broad: a wide range of factors are recognised, and there is no requirement for pupils to have a formal diagnosis before requesting and receiving help to access learning.

Categories of ASN include issues such as dyslexia, visual and hearing impairments, autism, and various learning difficulties, but schools also recognise personal and social issues such as mental health problems, substance misuse, and being a young carer as valid reasons for pupils to receive extra support.

Scottish schools also operate under a policy of ‘presumed inclusion’, where the starting expectation is that all children will be educated in mainstream settings, with additional needs then met on an individual basis.

What does this look like in the classroom?

Based on the latest data, the average primary school class of 23 pupils will have between eight and nine pupils with ASN.

In secondary things are a little more complicated, but in basic terms, a practical class limited to 20 pupils will have ten pupils with ASN, whereas a non-practical class with 30 students would have around fifteen requiring some form of additional support

The vast majority of mainstream pupils with ASN spend all of their time in their regular classes, with their teachers expected to meet their additional needs.

In some cases this might be relatively straightforward and only require small adjustments to teaching approaches or assessments. In some cases, support could be as simple as being vigilant for signs that a young person is struggling.

However, teachers often have to engage in extensive ‘differentiation’ – which refers to the practice of ensuring that each student is being given work that is appropriate to their abilities and goals, and being assessed relative to those benchmarks.

In some cases, that might mean creating entirely different versions of lessons to support different pupils.

Teachers have raised major concerns about the workload implications of the current approach to ASN and argued that support staff levels are entirely insufficient to ensure that young people’s needs are being met. Teaching unions have also linked this to increased problems with violence and aggression in schools.

How are individual schools affected?

National figures only provide averages, but data does exist showing school-by-school breakdowns of the number of pupils with registered ASN.

Analysis of the data confirms that schools across Scotland experience the national ASN crisis very differently, and show that the average figures are derived not from a large number of schools clustered around the centre, but rather from a full range of ASN rates from zero percent up to 100%.

According to government data, there are eight schools that have no pupils with registered ASN. Most of these have fewer than 20 pupils on the school roll, but two stand out: Finzean Primary School in Aberdeenshire has a roll of 34, while Halkirk Primary in Highland Council has 90 pupils.

A further 26 schools have recorded ASN rates below 10%.

At the other end of the scale, Tiree Primary has just five pupils, all of whom have a registered ASN. Another five schools – four in Glasgow, and one in Edinburgh – have recorded ASN rates above 90%.

Across all of Scotland’s mainstream primary and secondary schools, more than 100 report ASN rates at or above 70%.

The available data also confirm the known link between deprivation and additional needs: an average of 42% of pupils in the schools with the highest ASN rates come from the 20% most deprived parts of the country.

The figures also show that more than 600 schools – around a quarter of all mainstream primaries and secondaries in the country – recognise more than half of their pupils as having additional support needs.

However, these numbers are also likely an underestimate because data on ASN rates is not provided for a total of 78 schools. Data is typically withheld in this way when the number of individuals involved is less than five, with the goal of ensuring that individuals cannot be identified, but this also prevents a calculation on the overall percentage of pupils with additional support needs at this schools. If schools in this grouping are assumed to have just four pupils with recognised ASN, then the percentages would range from three percent to 100%.

Use this database to search for individual schools and find out what proportion of their pupils have registered additional support needs

Read More:

• 'Not fit for purpose' - school leaders slam Additional Support Needs provision
• Union urges next Scottish Government to commit £900m to additional needs
• The additional support needs crisis risks creating a lost generation of children

Is enough being done to address these issues?

According to a recent report by Audit Scotland, there are many problems with the way in which the Scottish Government and councils have handled the challenges of increasing ASN rates.

The organisation points out that increases in ASN rates have been driven by the “inclusive approach” followed by schools, as well as “changes to data recording and increasing awareness of needs.” This suggests that the actual proportion of pupils needing additional support has not necessarily increased, but rather than children who previously would not have been identified as needing extra help are now recognised as requiring support to fully access education.

Audit Scotland also notes that it is “not possible to determine the scale, complexity and nature of additional support needs across Scotland due to inconsistencies and gaps in data recording". A “wide gap in outcomes” between those who do and do not have additional needs is also highlighted.

Ultimately, investigators found that “the Scottish Government has not planned effectively” for the impact of the inclusive approach to ASN provision. They stated that the challenges schools and teachers face are “not specifically reflected in funding formulas for education and education planning, such as training for teachers and support staff, class sizes and the design of school buildings” and insisted that the government and councils “need to fundamentally evaluate how education is funded, staffed and assessed to support all pupils to reach their full potential".

Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, has also been critical of the way in which the increases in ASN have been handled, pointing specifically to a need for more resources and support for teachers.

A recent survey of members found that more than three quarters agreed that there are “insufficient resources to support the effective implementation of the presumption of mainstreaming” in their schools, while 99% said that the “under-resourcing of additional support needs” has an impact on both pupils and teachers.

The union’s manifesto for the 2026 Holyrood election campaign demanded that the Scottish Government “put in place the requisite additional staffing and resources to fully implement in practice the relevant legal duties and commitments for all pupils with additional support needs.”

In 2024, the Scottish Government announced a "£29m ASN plan", but when asked to release this via an FOI request admitted that "does not have" the material in question.

Education Secretary Màiri McAllan told The Herald that Scotland's education system is “designed to be inclusive for all children and young people in schools, with or without additional support needs", and that every teacher is "trained to assist those with additional support needs (ASN) to meet professional registration standards".

She continued: “In pursuit of Getting it Right for Every Child, current categories of ASN go beyond what might be considered traditional or medical definitions into a broad range of social, emotional and familial experiences. For example, English as an additional language is the fastest growing category but is an ASN that will not be lifelong.

“We are working with councils to meet the challenges that the growth in ASN presents, which is why we are investing a further £29 million this year to support ASN staff. This is in addition to the record spend of over £1 billion by councils on ASN in 2023-24.

“Recommendations from a rapid review of additional support for learning (ASL) provision published earlier this year will aid the response to the shifting landscape in ASN. To enhance consistency, reduce variation and strengthen data recording across the system we plan to establish a route-map and timelines to deliver a National Staged Intervention Model within the first 100 days of this Government, which will help underpin this work.”