From Carrie White, Early Years SEND Lead Teacher
It is exactly a year today that the World Health Organisation declared a worldwide pandemic caused by Covid-19. What a year it has been - so much has changed and we have all adapted in so many ways. Yet as I look to the future, I see so much more change on the horizon.
Firstly, with all children returning to education we as educators are changing the way we do things. There is more of an emphasis on wellbeing and looking at the whole child rather than just the academic ability
There is a new Early Years Foundation Stage profile that we will be working with from September 2021.
There is also the prospect of the longer-term potential impact of COVID-19 for our children and families. This is something I believe we will be working on for a long time.
Let’s hope numbers continue to decrease and that we are able to come out the other side of this terrible time constructively.
Education
Health and Care Plans:
When you are requesting an EHCP needs assessment please ensure you send your completed forms to seneducationteam@medway.gov.uk alongside any additional information you feel is needed to support the application.
Please also include some information about what has happened for this child during the COVID-19 period. For example, Child X has not attended since March 2020 due to the National lockdown and then parents were shielding. Or Child Y started with us on 1st September 2020 but then did not attend between November 2020 and March 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdowns in place. Or Nursery had to close in December 2020 due to COVID-19 which affected this child’s bubble.
EY SEND
Training:
We are offering the following training via Microsoft Teams:
· Behaviour that Challenges - Thursday 29th April 10:30 am - 11:30 am
· Early Communication Strategies - Tuesday 11th May 10:30 am -11:30 am
· Role of the SENCO - Tuesday 18th May 10:30 am - 11:30 am
· The Education Health Care Process - Friday 21st May 10:30 am - 11:30 am
If you would like to book onto any of the training courses, please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk with your SENCo’s name/name of the staff attending and the email address to be used 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.
Early
Years Wellbeing Webinar:
The Educational Psychology team are running a wellbeing webinar about staff wellbeing on 30th March at 2pm. If you wish to attend, please can you email Tina at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk. We will send you instructions for joining once the Educational Psychology team set these up.
Funding:
IMPORTANT - Invoices
FOA of settings claiming SEN Inclusion Funding (SIF)
Due to the end of the financial year, please could you kindly submit any invoices up to and including March 2021 as soon as possible as these must be paid by 31/03/2021. Thank you to those of you who have already sent the invoices in.
If you have any queries, please contact me on 07773187596 or via email at carrie.white@medway.gov.uk.
Please note: Invoices are to be sent to eyhighneeds@medway.gov.uk.
Disability
Access Funding (DAF)
Please remember to check with your parents to see if they are in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA). If they are, you will find the forms to allow you to claim the DAF additional funding to support children on the elearning website. Remember this funding is only for children in Nursery and is ringfenced for Early Years. If you are unsure, please speak with your Early Years SEND Practitioner or speak to Carrie White EY SEND Lead Teacher.
The New
EYFS
Preliminary discussions are happening within Medway Council about the New EYFS and the impact this has for SEND children. We are meeting as a team alongside colleagues from the Education Psychology team, PASS team and SEN team to be introduced to the New EYFS document from next week. If you are keen to be a part of the working party to look at how we report levels especially in regard to our SEN children, then please email Tina to ask to join this group. Thank you to those of you who have already put yourselves forward.
Transition Project
Thank you to those of you who asked to join the working party for the transition project. Once financial year end is out of the way I shall contact you to arrange our meetings about transition. If you are keen to join and have an input, then please email me and I shall include you in the group.
Child attending more than one setting
This has been taken from the government guidance document Actions for Early Years and childcare providers during the Corona Virus outbreak March 2021:
‘Attending
more than one setting
There may be situations where a child needs to attend more than one setting, for example, children attending a childminder before their nursery opens so that their parent or carer may go to work. Parents and carers should be encouraged to limit the number of settings their child attends, ideally ensuring their child only attends the same setting consistently. This should also be the same for staff. Where a child routinely attends more than one setting on a part time basis, you should encourage parents and carers to work through the system of controls collaboratively with you to address any risks identified and allow them to jointly deliver appropriate care for the child.’
The document does not stipulate that 48 hours between attendance at setting is required. You are asked to work with the parents and carers to work through the system of controls collaboratively and address any risks to allow settings to jointly deliver appropriate care for the child.
Referral
Forms
Here is the information you need to access different forms:
EHCP form, please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk
Funding forms, the application form and provision map are on our elearning website: from the homepage https://www.e-learningatlast.org.uk/, click on Early Years Information and Guidance, click on Referral forms for Practitioners. It will ask you to log in but if you don’t have log in details, you can just click on ‘Log in as Guest’ and you should be able to access all the forms there.
Referrals forms for Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Health Visitors are found at https://www.medwaycommunityhealthcare.nhs.uk/health-and-care-professionals/paper-re/navigate/3106/503
· Speech and Language – please use the preschool form
· Occupational Therapy – please use the preschool form
· Physiotherapy
· Violet pathway – please use for referrals for children with multiple complex needs
· Health Visitors – please use The Public Health Nursing form for referrals to the health visitor