Education (Scotland) Act 1981

3 Special educational needs

(1) In section 1(5) of the principal Act (duty of education authorities to secure provision of education)—

(a) for sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (a) there shall be substituted the following sub-paragraph—

“(ii) provision for special educational need”and

(b) for paragraph (c) there shall be substituted the following—

“(c) " provision for special educational needs ", in relation to a child or to a young person receiving school education, means educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children or, as the case may be, young persons of his age in schools under the management of the education authority for the area to which he belongs in accordance with section 23(3) of this Act;

(d) " special educational needs ", in relation to a child or young person, are needs caused by a learning difficulty which he has which calls for provision for special educational needs to be made for him, and a child or young person has a learning difficulty for the purposes of this paragraph if—

(i) he has significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children or, as the case may be, young persons of his age; or

(ii) he suffers from a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children or, as the case may be, young persons of his age in schools under the management of the education authority for the area to which he belongs in accordance with section 23(3) of this Act; or

(iii) he is under the age of five years and is, or would be if provision for special educational needs were not made for him, likely to fall within sub-paragraph (i) or (ii) above when over that age,

but a child or young person is not to be taken as having a learning difficulty solely because the language in which he is or will be taught (the " teaching language ") is different from a language, or from a form of the teaching language, which has at any time been spoken in his home.”.

(2) The enactments in Part I of Schedule 2 to this Act shall have effect subject to the amendments specified there.