guide for professionals
This handbook is written for early years settings. Its aim is to help them to identify a child’s special educational need or disability (SEND), what level of support they are expected to offer and how to arrange and monitor the support given.
This is achieved through identifying, planning and monitoring the needs of children to support their progress. It also involves making best use of available resources to comply with the Code of Practice 2014 and the Equalities Act 2010. This links with the EYFS and Ofsted frameworks.
If a setting has concerns that a child is finding certain aspects of learning hard – or that they are not making the same progress as other children – they can use this guide to help them to bring together all the information needed to get a more detailed picture of the child’s needs.
Many children will need extra help with their learning at some point but this does not necessarily mean that they have a special educational need or disability (SEND). Children have a learning difficulty if they:
Children must not be considered as having a learning difficulty solely because the language or form of language of their home is different from the language in which they will be taught.
Special educational needs support should be provided for children and young people with SEND. For children of two or over in early years settings, this means educational provision that is additional to, or otherwise different from, the provision made generally for children of their age in their setting. For children under two, it means educational provision of any kind
With promotion and application of this early years SEND Guide in B&H we anticipate there will be an impact in terms of:
The national picture shows that 3.5% of two-year olds and 6% of three and four year olds are noted to have identified SEND. The school age national data from January 2020 shows 3.3% of all pupils in schools in England have an education, health and care (EHC) plan with a further 12.1% of all pupils getting SEN support.
The most common prime area of need in an EHC plan is autism. For pupils with SEN support the common issues are speech, communication and language needs.
The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2014) sets out how parents and carers should be involved in identifying, understanding and taking decisions about special educational needs (see SEND Code of Practice Section 6.48). The importance of working together is emphasised throughout the document.
If you are a parent of a child with SEND, we are delighted that you are looking at this early years SEND guide. It has been written to help early years settings and is open to parents too as it is on the Local Offer.
By sharing with parent carers, we are making sure the same information is available for families, early years practitioners and other professionals working with your children.
However, it is a detailed procedure guide for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) in early years settings and uses language familiar to those who work in education.
If you come across something you don’t understand fully, ask the SENCO at the setting or Amaze SENDIASS, which is the local information advice and support service for SEND www.amazesussex.org.uk The Local Offer is also a good place to go for more information: Brighton & Hove SEND Local Offer
In Brighton & Hove there is a strong commitment to working with parents and carers to ensure that you are actively involved in decisions around your child’s SEND. This is the clear message of the SEND Code of Practice (2015), which sets out how parents should be involved in identifying, understanding and taking decisions about special educational needs.
Parents quite rightly like to know how their child’s setting will make decisions about any extra support their child needs, and what that support will look like in practice. This guide may help you understand this.
Many parents find it helpful to understand what their child’s early years setting is basing decisions on. This is particularly important in the early years when you are new to the world of SEND. It can be reassuring and can help you ask informed questions about your child’s support and progress.
If you have time to read the whole guide you will get a good picture of how SEND is managed in early years settings across the city. We hope you will find it interesting and use it to help you work with your child’s setting.
All the city’s different communities bring the richness, energy and creativity that make Brighton & Hove such a vibrant place. As a council, we want everyone to be able to contribute to our city and to benefit from what it has to offer. The council and schools and early years settings in our city play an important role in tackling inequality and respecting and valuing diversity.
In Brighton & Hove the principles underlying the SEND Code of Practice 2014 inform our inclusive practice. We adhere to the key duties laid out in the Equality Act 2010:
The Equality Act defines a wide range of ‘protected’ characteristics that these duties specifically apply to. They include disability. The council also provides support for early years settings to ensure that they meet their statutory duties under the Equality Act in line with this advice from the Department for Education. Disability is defined as:
Someone is disabled under the Equality Act 2010 if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on their ability to do normal daily activities. The overriding principle of equality legislation is generally one of equal treatment. However, the provisions relating to disability discrimination are different in that we may, and often must, treat a disabled person more favourably than a person who is not disabled and may have to make reasonable adjustments to practices to ensure, as far as is reasonably possible, that a disabled person can benefit from what you offer to the same extent that a person without that disability can.
The statutory duties of early years settings are helpfully described in a document by the Council for Disabled Children: Council for Disabled Children Equality Act Early Years Within Brighton & Hove we strongly recommend that early years settings apply the social model of disability to their work with children with disabilities:
The social model of disability says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for disabled people. When barriers are removed, disabled people can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives. Scope
‘Increasing equality’ is a central principle informing how we plan, finance, deliver, commission and review our services. The early years and school age SEND guides promote accurate identification and support for the city’s most vulnerable children and young people and their families from pre-school to post-16 access to education and training.
Our aspiration is for a more equal city where no-one is left behind, and where everyone shares in the city’s prosperity and is respected.
Whoever has governing, managerial or ownership responsibility for a setting providing education for pre-school children should ensure that appropriate provision is made for children with SEN – and appoint a SENCO.
Every setting in receipt of government funding must have a named person responsible for co-ordinating support for children with SEND named in their SEND Policy.
Setting owners and managers should consider allocation of time to allow the SENCO to fulfil their responsibilities.
A SENCO needs to have the overview of the setting’s SEND policy and practice, as they hold responsibility for the day to day practical implementation of the policy by all staff.
The SENCO role includes:
Settings will offer internal lines of management and access to appropriate training. SENCOs can link with other early years SENCOs for peer support.
All settings have access to the Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service (BHISS) for:
The Healthy Child Programme (HCP) is the early intervention and prevention public health programme for all children and families. It is offered to all 0-5-year olds living in Brighton & Hove.
The HCP aims to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities in outcomes as part of an integrated approach to supporting children and their families. It offers families a programme of developmental reviews and information / guidance to:
The 0-5 service is delivered by health visitor area teams. These include health visitors, health care practitioners, administrators and some co-located school nurses. The teams deliver expert information, health assessments and interventions to ensure whole family needs are met.
Your Community describes a range of health services (including GP and community services) for children and young people and their families. Health visitors and school nurses are involved in developing and providing these and making sure clients know about them.
Universal Services provided by the HCP teams ensure a healthy start for every child. All families receive the five universal HCP health visiting contacts. These are: ante natal; new birth visit at 10-14 days; 6-8-week review; 9-12-month developmental review; and a 2-2.5 year review.
The HCP’s universal reach provides an important opportunity to identify families in need of additional support as well as children who are at risk of poor health and developmental outcomes.
Universal Plus provides a swift response from the HCP team when specific expert help is needed. This might be identified through a health check or through providing accessible services. It could include managing long-term health issues and additional health needs, reassurance about a health worry, advice on sexual health, and support for emotional and mental health wellbeing.
Universal Partnership Plus delivers on-going support by the HCP team. It is part of a range of local services working together and with individual families to deal with more complex problems over a longer period.
If a child with identified vulnerabilities is in early education such as a nursery, pre-school, or child minder, they will be offered an ‘Integrated Review’. This incorporates findings from the ASQ-3 domains with the early years Foundation Stage Developmental Assessment categories.
It encourages a partnership approach between parents / carers, the HCP service and early years settings and forms part of the child’s Universal Plus and Universal Partnership Plus. This can be undertaken by a health visitor (HV) in place of the universal 2-2.5-year review or in addition to the universal 2-2.5-year review. The HCP teams in Brighton & Hove should follow the integrated review pathway outlined in the school readiness guidelines.
If a child receives Disability Living Allowance (DLA), or has an Education Health Care plan, they can have free early learning from the term after their second birthday. This continues until they start school. Families can seek more information by contacting the Family Information Service.
The free early learning from two years is for 570 hours a year (or 15 hours a week for 38 weeks a year if the provision is open term-time only). From the term after their child’s third birthday, some working parents may be eligible for an additional 15 hours a week.
More information on these free early learning entitlements, as well as financial support
for parents paying for childcare, can be found at the government’s Childcare Choices website. There is also information on our Family Services Directory, which also lists all the city’s childcare providers.
Additional Support Funding (ASF) may be available to early years and childcare providers. This is to help children take up their free early learning at a mainstream Ofsted-registered provider – a playgroup, pre-school, day nursery, childminder, nursery school or primary school nursery class.
BHISS assesses the need for and administers ASF to support inclusive practice. It can be used to increase the staffing to enhance inclusion for children and / or to pay towards equipment or training for staff to meet identified needs.
ASF can only support children to attend their free early learning. If parents and carers are paying for additional hours there is no ASF paid to providers.
Once a child has reached the term after their third birthday, and if they have DLA or an EHC plan, early years providers can claim the Disability Access Fund (DAF). Providers apply directly to the council for the DAF, which was £615 in 2020-21. The DAF is paid once a year. If the child moves settings the funding stays with the original provider.
The DAF goes towards enabling a child to benefit from the full early years foundation stage. Again, this can be equipment, resources or adaptations to the venue.
EMAS is a team of specialist teachers, bilingual liaison assistants, and home liaison officers. Their early years team provides the following support for children families and settings:
EMAS work closely with other professionals to deliver the best outcomes for the child. For example, they work with speech and language therapy colleagues to identify children in need of additional support for their language development.
The team offers support in the main community languages of Brighton & Hove. The languages provided may change to adapt to community needs and achievement data.
Anyone can contact EMAS for support, and families can self-refer. Parental consent is required, but sometimes it is difficult to obtain consent as the service cannot be clearly explained. We can help you explain the EMAS service to parents
Contacting EMAS
Children with no English but who are communicating at an appropriate level in their home language do not need referring for assessment of their speech and language. Early assessment of all of a child’s languages enables children with speech and language delay / disorders to have appropriate referrals.
There are a lot of cognitive and emotional / social advantages to being multilingual. It is important to take a child’s bilingualism / multilingualism into account and not assess them as a monolingual child. It is important to gather information on all the languages the child hears and speaks, and their level of understanding / speaking in each.
Parents should not be advised to just speak English, even if their child has significant SEND. Children need good role models for language and a link to their culture / identity.
There may be additional factors to consider when assessing a child with EAL. These could include the length of time in the country, whether family have experienced trauma (eg refugee families), and different expectations of developmental milestones.
A diagnosis of SEND can be difficult for any parent. There may be extra difficulties for a parent with EAL, such as very different attitudes / approaches in their country of origin.
Children's Centres provide services and support for parents and carers with children under five. Services vary at each centre according to the needs of local families, but all centres provide:
The Children’s Centre teams work closely with the HCP health visitors. Following a health visitor assessment families and children who are identified as having additional needs can be supported in the following ways:
Some families may also be allocated an ‘early years educator’ who can work closely with the family and child. This can be in their home, at the centre, or virtually. This work will include a time limited intervention in areas such as:
This team works with pre-schools, nurseries and childminders registered with Ofsted to develop the quality of practice across the Early Years Foundation Stage.
Targeted support is given to any settings with a ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ Ofsted judgement. Other settings can request advice on:
The team sends fortnightly email bulletins, holds termly network meetings, sends a Network News and coordinates an Early Years Foundation Stage training programme. They incorporate best practice in supporting children with SEND in the advice and material they share and make links with the BHISS team when more specialist advice is required.
A member of the team also advises holiday clubs and after school clubs and coordinates the allocation and effective use of inclusion funding.
Further information from Early Years and Childcare Professionals.
‘Inclusion is a journey with a clear direction and purpose: equality of opportunity for all children’.
The aspiration to support every child with SEND to have the best start in life lies at the heart of effective inclusive practice. This should be clear in all Brighton & Hove early years settings.
Before additional interventions are considered, settings need to ensure the child’s learning experience is of high quality. Good quality inclusive nursery provision for all learners should be reviewed by the setting with the SENCO and include the following:
The SEND Code of Practice (2014) sets out the requirements necessary to support children and young people aged 0-25 years with additional needs. Chapter five particularly covers early years, but some other sections may also be relevant at times.
Early years providers must have regard to the Code of Practice and have robust arrangements in place to support children with SEN or disabilities. These arrangements should include a clear approach to identifying and responding to SEN.
Children’s SEN are generally thought of in the following four broad areas of need and support:
These areas give an overview of the range of needs that providers should plan for. However, children often have needs that cut across all these areas and their needs may change over time.
For instance, speech, language and communication needs can also be a feature of several other areas of SEN. Children with an autism spectrum disorder may also have needs across all areas. The special educational provision made for a child should always be based on an understanding of their strengths and needs and should seek to address them all.
SEN registers can act as monitoring tools for SENCOs to record SEND. Any list (register) with key information of children, needs to be compliant with GPDR.
Records kept for children will identify the SEND cycle of assess, plan, do, review. This process includes consideration of the following information:
Early Years settings are asked to identify if a child has SEND in their termly headcount. They are asked to identify if a child has no SEND, SEND Support or an Education Health Care Plan. Information from the Spring term is then uploaded for the DfE annual census.
Each setting will aim to deliver good quality inclusive nursery provision with high quality learning experiences. Children will respond in varied ways at varied times.
The SENCO will work with the early years staff to adjust the environment and learning experiences to meet the needs of the child and monitor progress. At times, a child will require additional adjustments and the team will plan for, and deliver, these interventions where required working in partnership with parent and carers. These additional interventions form the child’s SEND support.
The Code of Practice describes ‘SEND Support’ being required where a child is identified as having SEND. To enable the child to participate, learn and make progress Early Years settings should act to:
Early identification of a child having SEND is important. SENCOs in early years settings can promote early identification by ensuring that effective systems are in place such as observations and staff liaison.
This enables children’s additional needs to be identified early, and concerns are acted on. Early years settings are often where concerns are first seen – settling / new environment / challenge.
SEND Support:
SEND support should arise from a four-part cycle, known as the graduated approach. Through this approach earlier decisions and actions are revisited, refined and revised. This leads to a growing understanding of the child’s needs and of what support the child needs to make good progress and secure good outcomes. The four stages of the cycle are: Assess, Plan, Do, Review.
'Assess, Plan, Do, Review shouldn't really be new as a concept to good practitioners and SENCos. It should be what they are doing anyway - identify what the core difficulty is and plan an appropriate strategy, taking into account how the child learns the best. Then carry out the plan and review how it's working.'
SEND support should be recorded on SEND support plans. They should only record that which is additional to or different from the differentiated curriculum plan that is in place as part of normal provision. All plans should be discussed with parents.
Strategies employed to enable the child to progress should be recorded within a plan. This should include: information about the short-term targets set for the child, the teaching strategies and the provision to be put in place, when the plan is to be reviewed, and the outcome of the action taken.
Targets should be:
The SEND support plan is a working document that should be readily available for the appropriate staff to consult for planning, assessment and to inform the support in place for a child.
Parents should be involved as much as possible in the setting of and working towards targets. Invite suggestions for targets but bear in mind that priorities may differ, and you may have to reach a compromise.
Try to suggest ways in which parents / carers can support the target at home and invite regular feedback as well as input into the review process. It is ok to revise a target if you find it is either too challenging or not challenging enough. Keep parents involved in the process though.
It is ok to review a SEND support plan before the agreed review date if a target has been achieved earlier than expected. When reviewing the plan invite input from all involved, including the child if this is possible. Consider the following:
Please remember to keep reviewed SEND support plans available as they may be needed to show progress/patterns of support for transition or requesting statutory assessment.
The following are links that offer advice to support SEND planning:
The EYFS framework sets the standards to make sure that children aged from birth to 5 learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe.
The framework is for all Ofsted registered early years providers in all settings, including nurseries, childminders, pre-schools and reception.
Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Every Child a Talker (ECAT) was designed to develop the language and communication of children from birth to five years of age. The national project involving 51 Local Authorities (including Brighton and Hove in 2010-11) was set up after concern about the high levels of ‘language impoverishment’ in the UK, and how this affects children’s progress in school and chances in life.
ECAT strategies and resources were designed to help staff create a supportive and stimulating environment within a provision in which children could enjoy experimenting with and learning language. ECAT encouraged the development of early language through everyday, fun and interesting activities which reflected children’s interests and enabled them to become confident and skilled communicators.
The child monitoring tool is a resource that is still used in Brighton and Hove by EMAS and staff in early educational settings to identify children who are at risk of speech, language and communication needs.
Every Child a Talker: Guidance for Early Language Lead Practitioners (foundationyears.org.uk)
Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQ®) provides reliable, accurate developmental and social-emotional screening for children between birth and age 6. Drawing on parents’ expert knowledge, ASQ has been specifically designed to pinpoint developmental progress and catch delays in young children—paving the way for meaningful next steps in learning, intervention, or monitoring.
The Early Years Developmental Journal is designed for families, practitioners and others to use as a way of recording, celebrating and supporting children's progress.
This Journal is particularly useful if it is known or suspected that a child being supported is unlikely to progress in the same way or at the same rate as other children - whether or not a particular factor or learning difficulty has been identified and given a name. It is also for people who would like to find out more about children's development in the early years
Early Years Developmental Journal
How to Use the School Years Developmental Journal
An accessible summary of educational research for early years teaching from EEF
Early Years Toolkit | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF
The PEP is the education part of a looked-after child's care plan. A termly Early Years PEP meeting and action plan is recommended for any child who is looked-after in an early years setting. For children of statutory school age the PEP meeting and the PEP document are statutory aspects of a child in care’s care plan. The PEP meeting provides opportunities to plan, discuss and evaluate the educational experience of a child and to ensure that their needs are being met. Meetings and plans are also recommended for children who were previously in care. More information is available from the Virtual School.
Promoting the education of looked-after and previously looked-after children - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Brighton & Hove Inclusion Support Service (BHISS) works with nurseries, playgroups and childminders registered with Ofsted, as well as schools and colleges. The service supports children and young people with SEND and their families.
All pre-school providers have an allocated link early years SEND specialist teacher and SEND specialist practitioner from BHISS to support them with practice relating to SEND and inclusion.
Your BHISS link can offer advice about the type and level of support for individual children. Where appropriate referrals are made to the health visitors and the Seaside View Child Development Centre for direct BHISS involvement.
Support offered includes:
From the range of specialist teams in BHISS, the following teams support pre-school children:
Further information can be found at BHISS Early Years Local Offer
Children can be referred for an intensive development nursery place for 15 hours a week by the BHISS Early Years Team, the Speech and Language Therapy Service and paediatricians at Seaside View.
When considering a child’s needs the setting and parents and carers should be mindful of using the four categories set out below:
The following sections have a range of strategies early years staff can use with children with needs in each of these four categories, as described in the SEND Code of Practice.
Each area has a list of things staff may see that indicate a certain need, how they might respond and what support can be put in place.
The level of response is described in a graduated way, from ‘First Concerns’ to ‘SEN Support’ to ‘Complex/ Specialist’ level of needs and support.
This section has been informed by The Cheshire East Toolkit for SEND. It is intended for the exclusive use of Brighton & Hove Council and must not be sold on or licensed to any third party for gain or otherwise. The Cheshire East Toolkit for SEND may be reproduced in part through external media providing such reproduction carries the words: “Reproduced with kind permission of the copyright holder Cheshire East Borough Council ©. All rights reserved”.
Speech and language therapy (SALT) may be involved and a SALT programme in place
Note: It is important to note that difficulties interpreting sensory information can have a significant impact on how we feel, how we think and how we behave.
Note: If the child loses skills previously mastered, advise parents to contact their health visitor or GP
Note: If the child loses skills previously mastered, advise parents to contact their health visitor or GP