As Early Years specialists, our staff members are ideally placed to pick up on any developmental concerns through their daily observations and interactions with each child. Staff will work closely with parents / carers to discuss and agree on the next best steps for supporting the child. This may be support offered within the setting or a referral to an outside service for more targeting specialist support – such as Speech and Language. It can be an anxious time for parents / carers and so staff are sensitive to each family’s unique needs and decisions are only made with parent / carers consent.
At Stockland and Yarcombe Preschool we pride ourselves in the care we offer to all children in attendance, wanting only the best to help each child flourish across all areas of development.
There are many support services available to support both young children and their families. Do speak to a member of staff who will be able to signpost you to the most appropriate service or submit a referral if appropriate.
In addition, the following are useful resources:
Individual Inclusion Funding
Individual Inclusion Funding is available to providers to support the inclusion of children who are at SEN Support. The aim is to support settings to provide enhanced provision and intervention that will impact on the children’s progress and outcomes. There continues to be a finite amount of resources and therefore Devon are taking a pro-active approach to ensuring the funding that is available has the greatest impact on children’s outcomes and supports early identification and intervention.
There has sometimes been an expectation that ‘support’ in SEN Support will be in the form of additional staff to provide one to one support for a child. In fact this may not be the most appropriate way to help a child or groups of children to make progress and the ‘support’ may take the form of training, physical or sensory adaptations, small group or targeted interventions, or additional adult time to enable the child to learn.
SEN Support Funding is available to support eligible children of all ages who are in receipt of the Early Years Entitlement Funding.
It is essential to monitor children’s progress throughout the Foundation Stage. Early years settings should adopt a graduated approach to meeting a child’s needs, as set out in the DfE SEND Code of Practice, 2014.
To assist settings in considering ways to improve outcomes for children with additional needs it is possible to make an application for funding to provide support through the setting or to support an individual child. This is now known as Individual Inclusion Funding (previously known as EY SEN Support or Early Years Action Plus Funding or EYAPF).
These are the children who you should be requesting Individual Inclusion Funding for:
- Complex needs
- Emergency funding application
- Medical need that impacts on child’s learning and development
- Child is identified at SEN SUPPORT
- Where children are being supported by the Early Years Complex Needs Team
- Settings can use individual application if child is known to one or more external agencies and there is a need for specific individual input.
- Settings can use individual application to support emergency funding application or to manage complex medical needs following a discussion with/visit from EYC.
Termly panel meetings will review applications of children with High Level Needs and discuss if funding will be awarded. There are 3 levels of funding that may be awarded as follows:
- Level 1: £1440 per year
- Level 2: £1800 per year
- Level 3: £2250 per year
These funding amounts are based on a child attending 15 hours per week / 570 hours per year. Therefore if the child attends for 30 hours the funding amount would be doubled or if the child attends less hours per week, funding will be reduced.
Due to the various models of funding available for children at settings and to ensure we fund children doing less weekly hours on a stretched offer, individual SEND funding will be calculated in line with their Early Years Funding entitlement and termly claims.
The examples below confirms how funding will be calculated:
- Level 1 funding (£1440 the year) / by 570 hours (universal entitlement) x termly funded hours claimed for Autumn term (14 weeks x 20 hours = 280 hours) = £707.37 for Autumn Term
- Level 1 funding (£1440 the year) / by 570 hours (universal entitlement) x termly funded hours claimed for Spring term (11 weeks x 20 hours = 220 hours) = £555.79 for Spring Term
Because the Individual Inclusion Funding is attached to the Early Years Entitlement Funding, payments will be made after the Headcount.
Devon’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Local Offer
To help you find out about the support services available in Devon and how to access them:
https://www.devon.gov.uk/education-and-families/send-local-offer/
Devon Information Advice and Support (DiAS)
A dedicated team offering legally- based and easily accessible information and advice about special educational needs and disabilities (SEND):
https://devonias.org.uk/
If you wish to speak to the Public Health Nursing Team – which includes Health Visitors – the East Devon hub can be contacted on: 0333 234 1903 or email easternphnhub@devon.gov.uk.