Supporting Alternative Provision in Bristol
The brief
Isos Partnership was commissioned by Bristol City Council to conduct an independent review of Alternative Provision (AP). The purpose of the review was to understand how the AP system currently functions in Bristol as both a local authority service and as a system as whole. There had been a recent change in leadership within the AP service (IncludED) and this presented an ideal time to explore opportunities to think about how the service could be as robust, responsive and agile as possible so that the most vulnerable children and young people were able to access the support they needed early and before they reached crisis point.
What did we do?
There were three phases of the review, which was undertaken between August and December 2025. The first phase involved an internal review, including discussions with local authority colleagues and an analysis of existing documentation and data to understand current processes and systems in greater detail.
The second phase involved detailed 121 discussions with key school stakeholders, interviews and visits to existing APs, and five online consultation events with education stakeholders. Isos also conducted four in-person group discussions with children and young people who were either currently being educated in AP or represented young people from diverse backgrounds as a reference group. The purpose of these discussions were to understand the lived experience of children and young people and to provide important detail and nuance to the key messages we were hearing elsewhere.
The third phase in the second half of the autumn term was to build on the learning from phase one and two through delivery of four structured workshops with engaged stakeholders across the local authority, schools and APs, which focused on developing different recommendations on service and system improvement.
What difference did we make?
The above work culminated in a final internal report presented to Bristol’s Director of Education, who was the sponsor for the overall project. Since the review, the IncludED service team has taken forward the recommendations from the review and has now started to embed these in ongoing business as usual. The recommendations have been tied in with Bristol’s existing SEND and AP delivery plan and have informed Bristol’s approach to national SEND and AP reform.
A further indirect benefit of the review was that the extensive engagement with schools and APs served to strengthen relationships with the local authority service, which was establishing itself under new leadership and has meant that all stakeholders are engaged on the improvement journey.
What did the client say about the work?
“I just wanted to share my thanks for all your work on the ALP review and for pulling together such a comprehensive report. I really appreciate the effort and attention to detail you’ve put into this and it was great to go through the recommendations together.” Director of Education, Bristol City Council