What early years settings have to do when working through the four stages of the graduated approach to give a child the special educational provision they need.
Identifying and deciding if a child has special educational needs or a disability
Practitioners working with young children should be alert to emerging needs and respond early. All early years providers must have arrangements in place to support children with SEND.
pdf Guidance on developing your SEND Offer (41 KB)
You can use the following to help you identify special educational needs:
- the Healthy Child Programme progress check at age two
- Early Years Outcomes
- progress reviews
- formative assessment and observations
- listening to parents or carers' concerns
- observations from the SENCO
Using these assessments and observations, you need to:
- decide if there is cause for concern about a child's progress
- identify if a child's development is behind expected levels for their age
It's essential there is no delay in making special educational provision. Early action is critical to a child's future progress.
Where you identify that a child has additional or special educational needs, you must work in partnership with the child's parents to establish the right level of support.
You should use a graduated approach with four stages of action:
- assess
- plan
- do
- review
The stages of the Graduated Approach cycle
Assess
The early years practitioner works together with a child's parents and the setting's SENCO to assess a child's needs. They should regularly assess the child to make sure the right support can be put into place.
Where the child makes little or no progress, specialist assessment from outside professionals may be needed.
Where outside professionals are not already working with the setting, the SENCO discusses this with the child's parents to get their agreement.
Plan
The child's parents, key person and SENCO agree:
- outcomes they are seeking for the child
- interventions and support to be put in place
- how they expect the interventions to impact upon the child's progress
- a review date
Interventions should:
- be strategies and support provided by practitioners with the relevant skills
- include a range of learning opportunities and differentiated activities to meet the outcomes identified for the child
All information should be captured in a Bristol document SEND support plan (121 KB) , which includes a section on agreed outcomes and an individual provision plan.
Do
The practitioner, usually the child's key person, is responsible for supporting the child each day and putting in place the agreed interventions.
The setting's SENCO should:
- support the key person in assessing the child's response to the actions
- provide advice on how to put the interventions in place effectively
Review
The setting works with the child's parents to:
- review the child's progress in line with the agreed date
- evaluate the impact and quality of support
- agree any changes to the outcomes, depending on the child's progress
If outside professionals are involved they should also be invited to attend regular reviews.
Involving specialists
You should use the ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review' graduated approach to meeting children's needs as a continuous cycle. If a child isn't making expected progress despite interventions matched to their needs, consider involving specialists, if they're not already involved.
You should make this decision in partnership with the child's parents.
Additional funding
You should consider if your setting will need additional support so that you can meet the child's needs and how this might be provided. You might need to apply for Early Years Special Educational Needs Panel funding.
Education, health and care (EHC) plans
If the child continues to make limited progress over a sustained period time, a setting should consider making an application for an EHC needs assessment.
You should discuss this with the child's parents and all professionals involved in the child's support.
