In a single annual review you can hear all three of these used as though they were interchangeable: alternative provision, EOTAS, and specialist provision. They are not. They are arranged differently, funded differently, and suit different situations — and knowing which one is actually on the table changes what you should be asking for.
Here is the plain version.
Alternative provision
Alternative provision, or AP, is education arranged outside a mainstream school, usually commissioned by the young person’s school or by the local authority, for a young person who cannot currently manage mainstream.
Key points:
It does not require an EHCP. Plenty of young people in AP have no plan at all, and plenty are waiting on an assessment.
The commissioning school or local authority normally keeps the pupil on its register and stays responsible for their education.
It can be full-time or part-time, and can run alongside continued attendance at the home school.
It is often — though not always — a step towards something else: back to mainstream, on to a specialist setting, or through to college, an apprenticeship or work.
This is what we are. We are an independent alternative provision in Newcastle, working with young people from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4, and we work with pupils both with and without EHCPs.
EOTAS
EOTAS stands for Education Otherwise Than At School. It has a specific legal meaning: it is the arrangement under section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 that allows a local authority to arrange special educational provision somewhere other than a school, where it would be inappropriate for the provision to be made in a school.
The practical differences from ordinary AP are significant:
It requires an EHCP, and the package is set out in the plan itself.
No school is named. In an EOTAS package the placement section of the plan is not completed, because there is no school placement. The provision is described instead.
The local authority arranges and funds it directly, rather than a school commissioning it out of its own budget.
It is usually a package rather than a single setting — often a combination of tuition, therapy, and activity or vocational provision, with different providers delivering different parts.
An EOTAS package is not the same thing as being educated at home by parents, and it is not the same as elective home education. It remains the local authority’s legal responsibility to arrange and fund.
Specialist school
A specialist school is a school — maintained special, academy or independent — designed for pupils with particular needs, named in the placement section of an EHCP, with a place funded accordingly.
It is a school placement, with everything that implies: a register, a headteacher, Ofsted registration, and a statutory duty to admit once named. If a specialist school is the right answer and a place exists, it is usually the most stable of the three options, because the placement is secured in the plan.
The difficulty is rarely whether it is suitable. It is availability, waiting lists, and travel distance.
How they overlap in practice
The neat categories blur quickly, and that is normal rather than a sign something has gone wrong.
A young person can be on a mainstream roll and attend an alternative provision three days a week. A young person with an EOTAS package can have an alternative provision as one component of that package alongside tuition and therapy. A young person can be in AP while waiting for a specialist place to become available, which is a very common use of provisions like ours. And a young person can move from AP back to mainstream with transition support — also common, and something we plan for from the start rather than treating as a surprise.
So the useful question in a meeting is rarely which of these three it is. It is who is arranging this, who is paying for it, and what is written down.
Who decides, and how to ask
Broadly: schools commission alternative provision from their own budgets and can do so without a plan. Local authorities commission AP too, arrange EOTAS packages, and name specialist schools in EHCPs.
If your child has an EHCP and you think the current arrangement is not working, the annual review is the formal route to raise it — and you can request an early review rather than waiting for the anniversary. Ask for what you want to be recorded in the review paperwork, in writing, on the day. If a decision goes against you, there are further routes including mediation and the SEND Tribunal; SENDIASS in your local authority offers free, impartial advice and is worth contacting early rather than late.
If your child does not have a plan and school is not working, you can ask the school directly about alternative provision, and you can request an EHC needs assessment — the two are separate conversations and neither has to wait for the other.
Where we fit
We work across all three of these situations. Some of our pupils are commissioned by their school with no EHCP in place. Some are placed by a local authority. Some are part of an EOTAS package where we deliver the education and activity element alongside other providers. Our specialist tuition and intervention service is often the piece that fits into a package of that kind — one-to-one, small group, online or in the home.
If you are a professional trying to work out whether we are a fit for a particular young person, the quickest route is a conversation. Visits from schools and local authority professionals are welcome at any time.
Start a referral — we respond within 48 hours — or get in touch if you would rather talk it through first.
