From Carrie White, Early Years Lead SEND Teacher
In some ways the last six months have flown by, when I accepted this job, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would spend the majority of my first six months in post working from home. As we begin to see an ease in the lockdown restrictions, we are planning the best ways to start running our service fully once again. During lockdown the ladies and I have been very busy looking at our resources, writing crib sheets, activity sheets and training packages in order to support our children. I have learned so many different things, joined lots of Early Years communities on social media where people have been sharing great ideas which I can’t wait to try out with some of our children. The team and I are optimistic and are hoping we are able to start the new academic year in a positive way which means we are actually able to work with settings, families and their children all be it whilst being mindful of the virus and trying to minimise the risk this poses. I know all of you have been working hard to get settings back up and running, welcoming back as many children as you are able to. I would just like to say a huge thank you from myself and the team for all your hard work and for ensuring you have the children at the heart of all your decisions. We completely understand this has not been an easy time for anyone. If you would like to talk about anything, we are here for you.
Carrie
Transition
In both our May and June bulletins we discussed transition points. We are now very close to saying goodbye to our children who are starting school in September. The transition booklets have been sent out with previous bulletins for you to use. We are asking if this year you could return a copy of the SEND transition booklet to your EY SEND Practitioner in order for us to keep in case schools contact the team in the future asking about the support the children have had via pre-school or the team through our groups. We want to ensure a smooth transition for all children especially as lots of children have spent a long time at home.
Education, Health Care Plan Applications
Please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk to request the most up-to-date application form when thinking about submitting a request for an EHCP assessment. This way we know you have the correct form to avoid unnecessary delays. It also allows our team to write a report if the child is known to us. The panel is still meeting each week to decide if an assessment is needed and the assessments are still being carried out. The form has recently changed attached to this bulletin is a guide for how to complete the new form and a completed example.
If you would like your EY SEND Practitioner to read through the application before it is submitted, then send it to them directly via email and they will give you feedback before it goes to panel.
SENIF
You are still able to apply for SENIF via the normal processes. As of April 2020, it was decided that any new funding agreed would only be paid once the children are attending setting. All funding agreed prior to that would still be paid. Please send applications and invoices through to Julia Hanks for processing.
Training
I have used lockdown to learn some new skills - I am going to run training via webinars to begin with in the new academic year. I am going to start with The Role of the SENCO on Thursday 24th September. The following week 1st October will be Completing an Application for EHCP and SENIF funding webinar training. If you are interested in either of these training sessions please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk to book your spot. These training sessions will run through Microsoft Teams from 10:30 am to 11:30 am.
Early Years ELSA
The Educational Psychology service are offering Early Years ELSA training in the Autumn term. ELSA stands for Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. This training supports children with their emotions and your trained ELSA will be part of a community of ELSAs from across Medway who are there to collaborate and support each other as well as the children. Following Covid, there may be more children who need additional support with their emotional needs. This training is over a few of sessions and the same person needs to attend all of the training. There is some funding available to PVI settings to enable them to attend the training. More details of this training will follow shortly. (I still cannot stop singing ‘Let it go’ from Frozen every time we discuss ELSA!)
Visits from the Early Years SEND Team
We are very much looking forward to getting back into settings to see you and the children. As a team, we have written a protocol about how we can do this safely in line with Covid-19 restrictions. We have attached this for you to see. In a nutshell, it says as a team we will follow a setting’s lead on visitors. If you are not yet ready for us to come into setting, we are also happy to conduct telephone consultations with you. However, if you would like us to come in, we want to ensure the safety of your children, staff and our staff.
Some ways we have conducted visits so far have included
being in a specific room of a setting with only one member of staff, being in
the garden where we can observe the child and via video calling. EY SEND
staff will ensure they strictly follow guidance i.e., washing their hands and
will only be offering a physical visit to one setting a day. For example, if a
team member completes a home visit or nursery visit on Monday morning, they
will continue working from home for the rest of that day. When they
return from that visit, staff will clean any equipment they have used, shower
and change their clothes to minimise any risk. Staff are not proposing to
wear any PPE in line with the guidance settings have been given.
Currently, our groups are not running to avoid risk of passing anything from a group session into a setting. We will review our protocol to include them when we are able to run our groups again. We will continue to review our protocols to reflect current changes in government guidance. If you would like to discuss visits to your setting with me, then please call me on 07773187596.