Our discussions with providers tell us that one of the biggest pressures on the sector at the moment is the rise in the number of children with SEND. Sadly, in our own research, Dingley’s Promise found that one in five parents of children with SEND had been turned away from settings, and this is expected to rise as the increased early years entitlements put even more pressure on the sector.
Coram’s annual research found that a mere 6 per cent of local authorities believed they had enough provision for children with SEND in the early years, and their manifesto talks of an ‘early years inclusion crisis’.
Early years SEND often falls within a grey area in national discussions, with early years strategy often neglecting SEND, and SEND strategy often neglecting the early years.
At the recent Westminster Education Forum conference on SEND, I was invited to speak about early years SEND and how critical it is for the future of our children. A number of the speakers mentioned how critical the early years are for both children with SEND, and for the wider education system.
Councillor Zena Brabazon from Haringey spoke passionately about how to improve the system, and said we need to ‘go hell for leather for the early years’ to have the greatest impact. Ben Bryant from ISOS talked about their new report that will outline how the system needs to change to more significantly consider early years.
Encouraged by the positivity in the room, I spoke about the unique potential of the early years to make a huge difference to children.
Currently, the key barriers to inclusion are funding levels and timeliness, lack of skilled staff, lack of access to specialists and excessive paperwork.
I delivered the following key actions, necessary to improve this situation:
- Simplification of the SEND funding application processes. This specifically relates to the delinking Disability Access Funding (DAF) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to enable settings to access DAF directly rather than needing parents to go through the stressful, deficit-focused process of applying for DLA.
- The creation of a strong national programme of SEND inclusion training for practitioners, to complement the level 3 SENCO award and the new Early Years Educator criteria, which will now include a section on inclusion for all newly qualified practitioners
- Revision of Ofsted inspections to actively recognise good inclusive practice in settings within their judgements.
- The use of a new Department for Education assessment toolkit by settings and local authorities to reduce duplication of paperwork, and where possible integrating this with funding applications, two year old checks etc.
In wider discussions, an inclusive curriculum was identified as being critical to early years practice. Amanda Allard from the Council for Disabled Children stated that we need to ensure our curriculum is ‘rich, broad and inclusive’. This is something Dingley’s Promise are keen to support, through online inclusion training which supports both settings and local authorities. We need to ensure that the curriculum has the flexibility to adapt to the needs of a wide range of learners, while remaining ambitious for all children.
The most significant point agreed by all speakers was the need for large ‘whole system’ change. Today’s cohort of children are not same as twenty years ago, educators must acknowledge the need for our way of working to change, in order to ensure that all children can thrive.
ISOS suggested that it is wrong to say that we need change in the ‘SEND system’. Instead, we need to be focusing on major change to our wider education system, so that children with a range of needs can thrive regardless of whether they are labelled as having SEND or not.
What does this mean for early years SEND?
For early years professionals we often support children before formal diagnosis of need, and therefore our practice should be based on a strong graduated approach and on enabling children to learn together wherever possible.
Early years education gives children the best chance of positive life outcomes and widely teaches the rest of the education system about effective inclusive practice and its impact. We need those working in early years to be recognised and valued for the immense contribution they make to the life outcomes of children with additional needs and to the education system as a whole.
We have a new Government with a Minister for Education who has stated that the early years are her number one priority, as well as a commitment to ensuring that children with SEND get the best start in life. Never has there been a better time to actively support and develop the capacity of the early years sector to ensure that children with SEND receive the early intervention they need at the time they need it.
The strategic discussions which are now beginning to happen give me confidence necessary change over the coming months and years is more likely than ever.
