Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

As an Early Years provider, we have arrangements in place to support children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) giving regard to the SEND Code of Practice 2014.  Our highly skilled practitioners’ work in partnership with families, supporting transitions into our setting, building positive relationships, sharing information from home /setting, getting to know each child as an individual.  Our aim is that every child/family receives fair and equal opportunities within our setting.  We make reasonable adjustments to the environment for children with disabilities as required by the Equality Act 2010.

Induction

• We welcome all families into the setting and invite families to attend a welcome meeting and if deemed beneficial and appropriate we offer a home visit.  This all helps build positive relationships and supports transitions into our setting.
• Every child is allocated a key person who provides personalised care and learning, continuously planning to support each child to get the best possible start in life.
• We arrange an induction to settle children/parents in prior to the start date. The induction takes place over two visits, one with parents and one without.  At the induction the child will meet their key person and the SENCO.  If any other professionals are working with the family, we ask for consent from parents/carers to liaise with them prior to the child starting.
• To ensure we are providing personal care and meeting individual needs we ask parent/carers to share with us the home routine, any comforters, individual unique ways, likes and dislikes. We place emphasis on the continuity in care between home and Sandcastles to enable children to feel safe and secure and to be able to progress and develop.
• For a child with special needs and disabilities we implement individual risk assessments.  This information is shared and agreed with the parent/carer as the primary carer.
• Our management team are always on hand to talk to and meet the family.
• We share information through our online platform FAMLY, at drop off and collection times, following specific observations/progress checks and at parent evenings.
• As a child transitions through the nursery, we invite the parents/carers in for a meeting with the next room and to meet the new key person.  Our SENCO will continue to work with the family for continuity and to ensure that all information to meet the individual’s needs is shared with the new staff team along with his/her learning journey.  A new risk assessment is carried out for the new room.
• When a child starts school, we aim to liaise with the school and support the child’s transition offering to visit the school with the child and inviting the teacher into our setting to observe the child in a familiar environment and to meet with the key person.  This procedure depends on which school we are liaising with respecting schools have their own transition policy/procedures in place.

Curriculum

• We deliver the current curriculum legislation which is ‘The Early Years Foundation Stage’ for 0-5 years and consider the nature of each individual’s needs and how best to support them.  It is essential that all children are given a voice and his/her contributions are valued.   We aim to ‘go with the child’ in daily practice incorporating the child’s interests, setting new challenges, valuing and listening to their views within adult led activities i.e. registration time and encourage healthy discussions about what he/she has raised, praising the individual.
• Every child will have a range of observations by their key person which will be used to identify where the child is within the EYFS to further support and extend his/her learning.  Using this approach enables us to identify if there are areas for additional support to meet the children’s needs.
• We aim for children to be observed during their first and third weeks after which a baseline assessment is written and shared. This will detail the child’s age and stage of development across the areas of learning.  Focused observations then take place every half a term.
• In addition, at 2 years, all children have a written report summarising progress in language, physical and social and emotional development strengths with areas for improvement identified. For children with SEND and in receipt of 2-year-old funding, this will be an integrated report including assessment from a health visitor.
• All children have a ‘What’s next,’ with activities put in place to support progress in identified areas. This is reviewed at each observation point and if necessary, new targets set.
• If a child is significantly behind then a ‘One Plan’ will be created, with the parents, which identifies the areas of need and how to address them. This may involve outside agencies.  Children with One Plans will be reviewed at least termly, progress monitored, and new targets set.
• Parents/carers are involved in all decisions regarding their child and any individually designed learning programme or targets regarding how to help a child made by the SENCO and/or key person will be discussed with the parent/carer and reviewed regularly with them.
• We will tailor our curriculum to support children on ‘One Plans’. This may involve the creation or purchase of resources or deployment of staff to give children small group activities.  Staff will be given clear guidance on teaching strategies and resources to help meet individual needs, creating learning opportunities and making a positive impact on the child’s progress.
• We aim to work with and support parents to access appropriate provisions for children and when necessary, will prepare (or support parents to prepare) Education Healthcare Plans (EHCP) paperwork and submit to Essex County Council for additional support when children join primary provision.

SENCO

• We have a trained SENCO who has many years of experience who regularly liaises with the local Inclusion Partner as well as other outside agencies/professionals i.e. Health Visitors/Speech and Language Therapist.  Our SENCO works closely with staff to support children’s ongoing assessment.   Through observations data is collected about each child and evaluated by the SENCO and management. This is used to plan realistic next steps in collaboration with the family, the key person and any outside professionals who are involved.
• This data is also continuously evaluated to see what effect/impact our current practise is making.
• We aim to look and reflect on our nurturing environment, developing staff skills/approaches by implementing clear strategies, accessing additional training if required and promoting positive behaviour.
• Our management team regularly meets with the SENCO to discuss and monitor each child’s welfare and development with realistic agreed expectations set.
• If an individual requires any administration of medication or has a medical condition, we meet with the parent/carer and put in place a care plan asking for copies of any medical reports and liaise with medical professionals if required. We aim for all our staffing team to be paediatric first aid trained.  All administered medication given is witnessed by another member of staff.
• We are committed to ongoing professional development for our staff. Many, including the SENCO have attended the SENCO Code of Practice training and have numerous years of experience supporting children and their families.  Our management team have also received various training to support our SENCO.   We cascade our knowledge at in-house staff training.  Our SENCO, management team and practitioners attend external training if available in relation to Special Educational Needs along with First Aid (which is updated every 3 years).
• To further safeguard all children, we have two named safeguarding officers who hold a level 3 qualification.  All staff are required to pass an online safeguarding Level 1 qualification as part of their induction, and they receive Level 2 safeguarding in-house training from the Safeguarding officers. All safeguarding qualifications are updated annually.  Our policies and procedures are reviewed and updated accordingly meeting current legislation.

Community based activities and outings

We offer an inclusive setting and aim to offer all children first hand experiences/opportunities inside and outside of the setting.

• Permission from parent/carers to attend outings is confirmed through the FAMLY app.
• A risk assessment will be carried out prior to any trip with consideration given for any additional needs.