Welsh Medium ALN Provision: Your Child's Rights to Support in Welsh

For Welsh-speaking parents of children with ALN, the system presents a particularly cruel choice. Your child needs specialist support — speech and language therapy, specialist literacy intervention, educational psychology input — that the local authority claims it cannot deliver through the medium of Welsh. The implied offer is: accept provision in English, or go without.

Both of those options are wrong. The ALNET Act 2018 establishes a bilingual framework with specific legal obligations. Understanding those obligations — and knowing how to enforce them — is the first step.

What the ALNET Act 2018 Says About Welsh-Medium Provision

The ALNET Act creates a statutory duty for all responsible bodies — schools, local authorities, and further education institutions — to take "all reasonable steps" to secure Additional Learning Provision in Welsh if the learner requires it.

The ALN Code 2021 is even more specific. It states that if a decision is made that ALP should be provided in Welsh, this must be explicitly documented in Section 2B of the IDP. Once written there, it becomes a legally binding commitment. The school or LA cannot simply deliver the provision in English instead.

The word "reasonable" does carry weight — authorities can argue that it is not reasonable to provide a specific form of provision in Welsh if no qualified Welsh-speaking practitioner exists within a reasonable distance and alternative bilingual arrangements are genuinely unavailable. But "reasonable" is not a blanket excuse. It requires the authority to demonstrate what steps they have taken to find or develop Welsh-medium provision before concluding it cannot be secured.

The Provision Gap: What Is Actually Happening

The Children's Commissioner for Wales has documented the Welsh-medium ALN provision crisis in detail. The findings are stark:

• Standardised diagnostic assessments in the Welsh language are extremely scarce
• There are chronic difficulties recruiting bilingual specialists — particularly Educational Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists, and specialist teaching assistants
• Local authorities routinely cite workforce shortages as justification for providing ALN support in English even where learners are in Welsh-medium schools

The result is what the Children's Commissioner described as an "unacceptable decision" forced on Welsh-speaking families: keep your child in a Welsh-medium setting with inadequate support, or transfer to an English-medium school to access the provision they are legally entitled to.

In response, the Welsh Government allocated £20 million in May 2024 specifically to improve ALN provision, with a focus on Welsh-medium resources and bilingual specialist capacity. Progress has been made, but the gap remains significant in many areas.

How to Assert Your Child's Right to Welsh-Medium Provision

Step 1: Formally state your child's language preference in writing. In any assessment request and in all IDP-related correspondence, explicitly state that your child's first language is Welsh, that they are educated through the medium of Welsh, and that ALP must be provided in Welsh in accordance with the ALNET Act 2018 and ALN Code 2021.

Step 2: Request that Section 2B specifies the medium of delivery. When reviewing a draft IDP, check that every provision item in Section 2B states explicitly whether it is to be delivered "through the medium of Welsh." If this is absent from any provision item that should be in Welsh, request it in writing before signing.

Step 3: Challenge "workforce shortage" justifications. If the school or LA claims they cannot secure Welsh-medium provision, ask them in writing to provide:

• A list of the steps taken to identify a qualified Welsh-speaking practitioner in the area
• Evidence that they have contacted the relevant professional bodies and regional networks
• An explanation of what alternative bilingual arrangements they have explored

A letter that says "we can't find a Welsh-speaking SaLT" without any supporting evidence of a genuine search does not satisfy the "all reasonable steps" obligation. Push for specifics.

Step 4: Escalate to the local authority if the school claims inability. If a school is citing inability to secure Welsh-medium provision, this may indicate that the LA should be maintaining the IDP rather than the school — particularly if the provision required is complex or specialist. Write to the LA requesting that they take over IDP maintenance and commission Welsh-medium provision directly.

Resources for Welsh-Medium ALN Families

Mudiad Meithrin supports Welsh-medium early years provision and has specific grants to expand the bilingual childcare workforce. They operate Cylch Meithrin (Welsh-medium playgroups) and Cylch Ti a Fi (parent and toddler groups) that provide early intervention for the 0–3 age bracket. For families with very young children, Mudiad Meithrin is often the best starting point for Welsh-medium early support.

Urdd Gobaith Cymru and Merched y Wawr both operate networks that can connect Welsh-speaking families to community support and advocacy contacts.

The Children's Commissioner for Wales will receive formal complaints about the systemic Welsh-medium provision gap. If your local authority is systematically failing to provide Welsh-medium ALN support, a complaint to the Commissioner's office contributes to the evidence base for system-level reform.

The Education Tribunal for Wales has jurisdiction over IDP appeals and can consider whether an authority's failure to secure Welsh-medium provision constitutes a failure to meet the "all reasonable steps" duty.

The Linguistic Rights Argument at Tribunal

If a dispute about Welsh-medium provision reaches the ETW, the legislative framework supports a strong argument. Section 2B of the ALN Code specifically states that if ALP should be provided in Welsh, this must be in the IDP. The ALNET Act's "all reasonable steps" duty is enforceable. The Children's Commissioner's reports provide systemic evidence that the failure of Welsh-medium provision is a documented problem, not an isolated claim.

Independent Welsh-speaking Educational Psychologists — while scarce — do exist. An independent Welsh-medium EP report, if you can commission one, is powerful evidence of what your child needs and of the gap between what is required and what the authority is providing.

The Wales IDP & ALN Blueprint addresses Welsh-medium provision in detail and includes the template language for ensuring Section 2B commits to Welsh-medium delivery, along with guidance on challenging authorities that cite workforce shortages without evidence of reasonable steps.

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