Early years in schools

Enhance the quality of teaching and learning of children with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) in your early years setting with the support of our bespoke consultancy, training and advice service.

We can create bespoke support according to your school’s individual requirements. Activities may include:

• supporting early identification and intervention
• observations and planning for children with SEND
• advice on role of Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo)
• guidance on individual support/educational plans and provision maps
• visual aids and strategies
• strategies to support specific areas of development
• promoting positive behaviour for children with additional needs
• support with liaison with parents for consistency of approach
• guidance on SEND policies required within early years settings
• support with and signposting to a range of professionals and specialist agencies
• advice on providing quality transition support
• audit of inclusive practice and send action plan (6 hours)

Benefits

• effective leadership and management
• enhanced quality of provision
• staff confident in matters of inclusion
• meet the requirements of the Ofsted framework
• raised attainment and improved outcomes for children

Contact    

Email: EYCC@worcestershire.gov.uk

Training

Inclusion training can also be purchased as in-house training, which provides practitioners with the opportunity to train all staff (maximum 20) to fully embed the learning in your setting’s day-to-day practice. Some examples of training include:

• introduction to speech and language difficulties in the early years (£258)
• promoting positive behaviour 0 to 5 (£258)
  effective early identification for SEND (£258)
• individual provision mapping (£258)
• thumbs up with fidget (£258)
• inclusive practice workshop - 3 hours - £386
• new to role of SENCo training (includes send code of practice and role of SENCo) - 4 hours - £515

Develop your leadership of SEND and inclusion by conducting a SEND audit of your provision. An experienced early years inclusion consultant will complete an observation of your setting (maximum 2 rooms) using a checklist to audit your provision. It will determine any adaptations, resources, training or activities that require development to support inclusive practice and to improve outcomes for children with SEND. An action plan will be produced in liaison with the setting SENCo and/or manager to achieve future developments.

The early years inclusion consultant will spend 3-hours observing general practice in your setting, and a staff survey will be completed prior to the observation.

The audit will incorporate the following areas of practice:

• graduated response
• partnership with parents
• promoting positive behaviour
• inclusion funding
• send policies and procedures
• interactions between staff and child
• staff training and CPD
• children who are looked after

The consultant will feed back their findings to the SENCo and/or manager and an action plan will be produced in conjunction with the setting (approximately 1 hour).

Benefits

• preparation for Ofsted ‘readiness’ and quality assurance self-evaluations
• enhance the quality of provision and support better outcomes for children with SEND and/or disabilities
• improve provision of inclusive educational activities; embedding a clear graduated approach to meeting SEND needs
• recommendations of next steps and areas of staff development

Schools who are interested in opening up early years provision should use the following guidance documents to support them through the process: 

• Guidance for maintained schools (PDF)
• Guidance for academy schools (PDF)

The first steps

Before any decisions are made, it is important for schools to consider the following:

• is there any demand for early years provision in their community?
• will it have a detrimental impact on other early years providers?
• does the school have space for an early years setting?
• how is the provision going to be financed? 

To ensure that appropriate support can be provided, the following form should be completed by schools who are considering opening early years provision, School Based Early Years Provision - Initial Proposal Form

Governor led provision

For maintained schools that have formally made the decision to open Governor Led provision, the following form should be completed, Governor-Led School Based Early Years Provision - Post Consultation Form