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Welcome to the December 2020 Early Years SEND Bulletin

 
 
Picture of Tina Newman
Welcome to the December 2020 Early Years SEND Bulletin
by Tina Newman - Thursday, 10 December 2020, 10:02 AM
 

From Carrie White, Early Years Lead SEND Teacher

With Christmas just around the corner it feels like the year has flown by.  Next month marks my first year in post it seems like only yesterday I started.  Everyone has adapted so well to the constant changes this year has thrown up.  I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Early Years SEND team. 

 

EY SEND Training:

There is still time to book on The EHCP process and Funding application training on Thursday 17th December at 9:30 am. We will also be hosting the following training courses via Microsoft Teams in the New Year:

Behaviour which Challenges 12th January 10:30-11:30

How to Write a Successful Provision Map 15th January 10:30-11:30

Completing an Education Health and Care Plan Assessment Request 21st January 11:00-12:00

Early Communication Strategies 5th February 10:00-11:00

Role of SENCO 12th February 9:30-10:30

The EHCP process 12th February 11:00-12:00

 

EY SENCo Briefing 2 March 2020 10 am to 12 noon

The Early Years SEND team usually run these three times a year but Covid has put pay to us hosting these in person.  We have considered the idea of running these virtually and have concluded that we could set them up as a Teams Meeting with a key focus then some time for discussion between SENCOs.  These SENCO briefings will be held over a two-hour period so please make sure you have a nice drink and a couple of biscuits with you!  The first EY SENCo briefing will be held on Tuesday, 2nd March 2020 at 10:00.  Usually we hold these in separate clusters, but we will hold this first one altogether and see if this works well or if we need to offer separate dates for each cluster.

If you would like to book onto any of the training courses or the SENCO briefing, please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk with your SENCo’s name/name of the staff attending and the email address you will use to join the session. As with the other sessions we’ve offered, the email address will be added on to a Microsoft Teams group which could be seen by other delegates and other EY SEND Team members.

 

Transition Project

At this time of year, it seems very early to be discussing transition for some children.  However, we know that children make transition points throughout the year.  I am keen to put together a working party to discuss how we can improve transition for children with special educational needs across Medway.  I know the transition in Summer this year was very different for all children but at the same time I do feel there is a lot we could learn from the Covid period and use to ensure children across Medway have effective and timely transition.  I would first like to meet with SENCOs from a range of different settings to discuss your experience of transition and ideas for how we could make this better for our children.  After this, if you are interested and can spare the time, I would like to set up a transition working party alongside some of the SEN officers and school staff to draft a transition policy for Medway children.  If you are interested in sharing your views and potentially joining the working party, then please send me an email at carrie.white@medway.gov.uk so we can get the ball rolling. 

 

EY SEND Funding

Thank you for your patience with regards to applications and invoices for Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funding.  We recently had an upgrade to our internal system for the SENIF and High Needs Funding which has caused a huge number of issues for the whole of the SEN 0-25 team.  The largest impact for our team is that I am not able to process the payments or applications correctly as the system will not save them or allow me to access them.  Please do keep applying and invoicing as ICT are working through all the issues and gremlins. Please accept my apologies for this, I will get them to you as soon as I possibly can.   

All funding applications and invoicing must be sent to eyhighneeds@medway.gov.uk

 

Thank you

A huge thank you for all you are doing for the children of Medway and beyond during the continuous Covid period.  I know it has been very difficult at times and I have been truly overwhelmed by how strong and determined you all are.  You have really placed the children’s best interests at the heart of the very many difficult decisions you have had to make.  I urge you to keep going we now have a vaccine which has started to be given out to those most at need.  Hopefully we will begin to beat the virus and get back to normal soon.