Support in Early Years

There are lots of different services in Ealing that are there to help advise on your child’s development and who can refer you to other services for more help, if needed.

If you have any concerns about your child's development it is always advisable to talk to a health professional, such as a GP or health visitor. The pages on Early Start Ealing and Children's Centres below will give you information on where to find professionals and relevant sessions that might be running in your area, such as Stay and Play sessions or Baby Groups to support your child’s learning and development. You will find trained Early Years practitioners there who can give you lots of ideas and answer any questions you may have.

• Find out more about Early Start Ealing (internal link)
• Find out more about Children's Centres (internal link)

Children develop more rapidly during the first five years of their lives, more than any other period in childhood and as a parent you  are key at this critical time. Babies, toddlers and young children develop at their own rates and in their own ways, however there are developmental milestones that enable us to monitor the progress of the individual child to enable us to identify any areas of concern.

The  0-5 Know How website can be helpful for ideas on activities that will support your child’s development and learning at home. Produced by Ealing Council & Early Start Ealing, it provides in-depth information in a bite-size way to help you care for your young child.  

Our Speech and Language section can provide information and advice, as well as activities , that will support your child’s communication and language development. Find out about what support is available locally, such as universal groups and speech and language therapy. 

Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people to communicate. It is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech, in spoken word order. With Makaton, children and adults can communicate straight away using signs and symbols.  Find out if any makaton classes are running in your local children centre, or visit the Makaton website for some useful resources, information and current workshops.

Useful resources

www.wordsforlife.org.uk/baby

www.wordsforlife.org.uk/songs

www.makaton.org

www.singinghands.co.uk

Once your child reaches between 9 and 12mths and then 2-2.5 years, you will be invited to attend a health review, a universal service offered to all families with children. You can also request this developmental review by contacting the Early Start Team in your area.

Find out how to get in touch with your local Early Start Team (internal link) 

You will be encouraged to share and talk about your child’s progress and you will be able to ask any questions regarding your child’s development. This is carried out by a Health Visitor, Community Nursery Nurse or Early Start Worker. They will talk to you about your child's progress so far including their overall development, routines and health and wellbeing. They are there to help you if you have any concerns.

The health professional will use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire(ASQ) to guide the review and help monitor your child’s development. The health review covers 5 domains of child development: communication, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving and personal-social development.

Please remember to bring your child’s personal health record (Red Book) with you so that outcomes can be recorded.

If your child is going to nursery or pre-school: speak to your child's allocated key person if you are unsure about any of your child’s learning and development. You could contact the nursery's SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) to discuss how your child will be supported.

The SENCO

The SENCO is the person who helps to coordinate support for your child and works closely with you and your child’s keyperson/ teacher. 

Where nursery education is provided by a school, there will be a qualified teacher designated as the SENCO, who has the prescribed qualification for SEN Coordination or relevant experience.

Preschool or nursery groups (in the private, voluntary or independent sector) are expected to identify a SENCO, as are childminders who may identify a SENCO from a network or act as the SENCO themselves.

• ensures all practitioners in the setting understand their responsibilities to children with SEN and the setting’s approach to identifying and meeting SEN
• advises and supports colleagues
• ensure parents are closely involved throughout and that their insights inform action taken by the setting, and
• liaises with external professionals or agencies

All Early Years and childcare settings have a duty under the Equalities Act Early Years to provide an inclusive service that meets the needs of children with SEND.  

Under the Equality Act, Early Years Providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children/young person.

The duty to make reasonable adjustments aims to make sure that a disabled child/person can use an organisation’s services as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people. When something a setting/centre does places a disabled child at a substantial disadvantage to other children, the provider must take reasonable steps to avoid that disadvantage by making adjustments (in other words, changes). The aim of making adjustments is, as far as possible, to remove any disadvantage faced by disabled children.

The duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory. This means that the provider cannot wait until a disabled child wants to use its services, but must think in advance (and on an ongoing basis) about what disabled children with a range of impairments might reasonably need, such as those who have a learning disability, hearing impairment, visual impairment or a mobility impairment. Early Years providers are not required to do more than it is reasonable for them to do. What is reasonable for a provider to do is dependent on a number of other factors, including its size and the nature of the facilities or services it provides.

When deciding whether an adjustment is reasonable, the provider can consider:

• how effective the change will be in assisting disabled children? 
• whether it can actually be done
• the cost
• the provider’s resources and size

The easier any adjustment is, the more likely it is to be deemed reasonable. Even if the adjustment is difficult, this does not mean that it cannot also be reasonable. This must be balanced against other factors. If an adjustment costs little or nothing and is not disruptive, it would be reasonable unless some other factor (such as impracticality, health and safety requirements, its effect on other children or lack of effectiveness) made it unreasonable.

The organisational size of the Early Years provider and resources are another factor. If the adjustment costs a significant amount, it is more likely to be reasonable for a provider to make it if it has substantial financial resources.

If you are unsure about your child’s educational provision in relation to SEND and accessibility, in the first instance speak to the SENCO/Manager/Head at your child’s setting. If you need any further advice and information or would like support you can access impartial free and confidential advice and support from Ealing ISAID

Other Useful resources

Ealing Family Information Service

Contact Ealing- Support in the Early Years

The quality of children’s experience is the first 5 years is crucial in laying the foundations for later learning and progress. Early Learning begins in the home so parents and carers are usually their child’s first teacher.  For children with additional needs and SEND, parents will often need additional advice, information and support from early on.     

Children grow and develop at different rates and although many children with complex needs have these identified very early, for other children difficulties may only become evident as they grow and develop and as they learn and interact in new and different environments. i.e. nursery. Some children and young people have special educational needs that result from an illness or accident. The approach to identifying a special educational need should be part of a school or setting’s overall approach to monitoring the development and progress of all children.  

 A good understanding of a child’s starting points and regular checks on progress are the basis for identifying when they may be making less than expected progress given their age and individual circumstances. Children start settings and schools with varied experiences and usually need a little time to settle in and engage with new learning opportunities that are open to them. The progress check at aged 2 and assessment at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) https://www.gov.uk/early-years-foundation-stage are two important early points for formally reviewing children’s progress. Practitioners will particularly consider information on the child’s progress in (a) communication and language, (b) physical development and (c) personal, social and emotional development.

Early years practitioners monitor and review the progress and development of all children throughout the early years. Where a child appears to be behind expected levels, or their progress gives cause for concern, practitioners will consider all the information about the child’s learning and development speak with parents and decide on next steps.    

Special educational provision is education or training that is additional to or different from what is made ordinarily available to others of the same age. This means provision that goes beyond the different approaches, learning arrangements and interventions normally provided as part of high quality, personalised teaching.       

The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2015) SEND Code of Practice 0-25   sets out guidance and expectations in relation to identification, assessment and provision for children and young people with SEND. It stresses that all teachers/practitioners are teachers of children with SEND and hold that responsibility.

If a setting/school thinks your child needs extra support, (SEN support,) they will discuss this with you.

A child or young person has special educational needs (SEN) if both of the following apply to the child:

• they have a learning difficulty or disability which makes it much harder for them to learn than other children of the same age
• they require special educational provision to be made for them

A disability is described in law (the Equality Act 2010) as:

'A physical or mental impairment which has a long-term and substantial adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.'

Not all children and young people with a disability have SEN but often there is an overlap.

The SEN Code of practice specifies four actions needed to put effective SEN support in place. This is known as the graduated approach.

The four Actions are:

• Assess: the early years / class teacher and SENCO should clearly analyse a child’s needs before identifying them as needing SEN Support.
• Plan: the child’s family must be notified where it is decided that a child is to be provided with SEN support and involved in planning towards an agreed set of outcomes.
• Do: the early year’s practitioner / teacher should remain responsible for working with the child on a daily basis.  Where the interventions involve group or individual teaching away from the main practitioner, they should still retain responsibility for the child’s progress.
• Review: the effectiveness of the support should be reviewed in line with an agreed date included in any individualised planning.  

• In Ealing we expect that schools and settings  will use an Early Help Assessment Plan to support and record their assessment, planning, intervention and review where there is multi-agency involvement with a child and family.

The local authority must ensure that all providers delivering funded early education places meet the needs of children with SEN and disabled children.  Where most children’s needs can be met through the universal high quality teaching provided in schools and settings, there are some children with SEN who may benefit from additional funding and interventions.

Early Years Settings and schools (Nursery) can apply for SEN inclusion funding for children in their care via the Early Start SEND Inclusion Team. They must evidence how best they plan to use their resources to support the progress of children with SEN.  Any additional support awarded is intended to enable Early Years settings to meet the needs of children with additional or special educational needs and disability, keeping within the principles of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice.

Find out more about the Early Start SEND Inclusion team (internal link)

Disability Access Fund, DAF, is paid to providers with 3 and 4 year olds who are accessing free early education. It is available for each child who is in receipt of Disability Living Allowance, DLA, and is a one-off payment to the provider of £615 per child. It can be used to make adjustments to a setting to improve access, or to buy equipment.

Parents should make sure their provider is aware their child is receiving DLA, so that they can claim Disability Access Funding from their local authority.

Parents should ask their childcare/early education provider for a Parent Declaration Form (see downloads for an example of the form) so that they can fill in the section about the Disability Access Fund. If they have already filled in the form but have not indicated that their child receives Disability Living Allowance, then they should discuss this with their provider so that up-to-date information about their DLA can be passed on to the local authority.

If you need support in completing the DLA forms you may find Claiming DLA a useful guide. DLA Poster

DLA is the main benefit for disabled children and it is there to help meet some of the costs of caring for a disabled child.

Or arrange to visit Contact Ealing a leading UK-wide charity, providing advice, information and support to families caring for children, aged 0-25 years old, with any disability or additional need.

If you have any questions, need help finding a service or you're not sure what to look for on the Local Offer, please get in touch with Ealing's Family Information Service (FIS)

The FIS have a dedicated information officer to support children and their families with special educational needs and / or disability. And any member of our team can offer you advice and guidance on any subject relating to children and families living in the London Borough of Ealing.

Tel:  020 8825 5588 (Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm)

Email: children@ealing.gov.uk

You can also visit our Family Support section for information on support services based within Ealing: 

Family Support in Ealing |  Ealing Directory (ealingfamiliesdirectory.org.uk) 

Early Start SEND Inclusion Team (internal link)- Early Start SEND Inclusion workers are based within Early Start and offer targeted and specialist support to families of children with additional needs including children with social and communication differences. 

Nasen SEN Support Guide and the graduated approach (external link)- A guide to introduce school staff to the graduated approach to SEN support.

Equalites act in the Early Years (external link)- Outlines what Early Years providers (nurseries, childminders etc.) need to know and do to ensure children with SEND are supported. 

Support in the Early Years  (external link)- Useful information provided by Contact to help your family and your child through the early years- find out about diagnosis and concerns, paying for childcare and support in your child's setting. 

SEND guide for parents and carers (external link)- This guide explains how the system that supports children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND) works. 

SEND code of practice: 0-25 years (external link)- Explains the duties of local authorities, health bodies, schools and colleges to provide for those with special educational needs under part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

Words for Life (external link)- Useful online resource providing advice and activities to support your childs communication and language 

Makaton (external link)- Find out about the language programme that uses signs and symbols to help people communciate. 

Help in the Early Years (internal link)- An information sheet produced by Contact, giving information about education options and finding suitable childcare.