From Carrie White, Early Years SEND Lead Teacher
Welcome to the May bulletin! Apologies there has not been a bulletin for a while. I have been caught up with lots of other pressing matters and unfortunately had to make the decision not to write the bulletin.
We have been working as a team to improve the service we offer to our settings and families whose children are not yet in a setting. We have seen a growth in the level of need our children have and this impacts on our settings. I am sure you have all felt this. We are beginning to see the impact that Covid has had on some of our very youngest children who are now entering education for the very first time. I know I have had lots of discussions with settings about how they are changing and adapting to meet the needs of the children attending their settings.
For some children they appear to be quite delayed and there is the question around whether this delay is a true delay or is it because during lockdown they were not given the same opportunities and experiences that children pre-Covid experienced. This is of course no one’s fault as we all had to adapt to lockdown and the changes that were introduced very quickly back in March 2020. There are Early Years Covid Impact groups working with colleagues to look at how we can best support our current cohorts and move forward for the future. I am really interested to know how many children within your settings you feel may have a level of need. Could you please, if possible, kindly provide me with a breakdown of your cohort for example: number of children on role and number of children with a perceived level of need. Please email this to carrie.white@medway.gov.uk
With families just finding out which schools their children are due to start it is a great time to think about transition. Please ensure you complete your transition forms and have discussions with schools. If you feel you need some additional support with this for some of the SEN children, please talk to your EY SEND Practitioner about it. For your convenience, we’ve attached the SEND transition form with this EY SEND Bulletin.
Thanks very much!
Carrie
Safeguarding
There has been a large amount of information in the press about children who have suffered at the hands of those who are caring for them. Please ensure your team have the relevant training and know what they should be looking for and who they should be reporting to if they have any safeguarding concerns.
Now is a great time to consider how you are also safeguarding yourselves. Think carefully about how children perceive their trusted adults - the term aunties have been used for many years within childcare. You need to consider if this is the message you wish to give your children. Most children within your setting are not related to you and they need to be able to distinguish between the people at setting and those at home.
Appropriate touch
Within the Early Years we know there are times when children seek comfort from adults. This comfort should only be given in an appropriate way. Is there a need for staff to be reminded about how we need to protect ourselves as well as the children within your setting?
Site security
Is there a regular walk around your site scheduled to ensure the children are secure? There have been quite a few incidents of children being able to leave site in other areas of the country and so I just wanted to remind you to consider this too.
What if? Plan
As a team, have you considered the What if? Plan- what if a child were to get out? What if a child were to choke? What if a child were to have a fit? Think about the possible scenarios and discuss as a team the response you would have to the scenarios. Is there a need to change your procedures? Do all of your new staff know what to do in a situation like this?
Cross Border children
Some settings have children who actually have a Kent address. In some areas of Medway, one side of the road falls under Medway local authority while the other falls into Kent. We know we have very different procedures from those in Kent.
Below are the contact details for the different areas of Kent where your children may live. It is important you contact them for Education Health Care requests. We will do our best to advise you and support any child at your setting but Medway Council are not able to complete the Education Health Care process for a Kent child.
North Kent Dartford, Gravesham and Sevenoaks
• email: SENNorth@kent.gov.uk
• call: 03000 419 345
• text relay: 18001 03000 419 345
• address: Joynes House, New Road, Gravesend, Kent, DA11 0AT
East Kent Canterbury, Thanet and Swale
• email: SENEast@kent.gov.uk
• call: 03000 421 160
• text relay: 18001 03000 421 160
• address: Brook House, Reeves Way, John Wilson Business Park, Whitstable, Kent, CT5 3SS
South Kent Ashford, Dover and Folkestone and Hythe
• email: SENSouth@kent.gov.uk
• call: 03000 420 889
• text relay: 18001 03000 420 889
• address: Kroner Park, Eurogate Business Park, Ashford, Kent, TN24 8XU
West Kent Maidstone, Tonbridge and Malling and Tunbridge Wells
• email: Senwest@kent.gov.uk
• call: 03000 420 997
• text relay: 18001 03000 420 997
• address: Worrall House, 30 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent, ME19 4AE
This is for children who need an Education, Health Care plan needs assessment. You can find the forms for this on the Kent Local Offer page here:
If you have a child with a Kent address in your setting, you are able to apply for SENIF via Medway Council for that child once the child is 3 years old. The process is via a provision map and application form.
Funding
Funding issues should now be resolved. I would like to thank you all for being so patient as you know I am trying to do this and my normal day to day job as well. We are now going through the process of recruiting for our new administrator who will be the person responsible for funding as well as other areas of our administration role.
If you are unable to send funding requests via email, please send addressed to: EY SEND Team – Funding, Level 4 Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham ME4 4TR.
Invoices
Please be aware that invoices need to have individualised invoice numbers in order for the payments team to be able to pay them. We suggest you use the child’s initials, the month and the year. For example, CW042022 as an invoice number. We have had some payments refused recently due to this reason.
Training
We are aiming to be make at face-to-face training sessions from September but for now we are still using Microsoft Teams to deliver training sessions. 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.
· Role of SENCO Friday 13th May 10am
· Graduated Response Friday 13th May 1pm
· Provision Maps Friday 20th May 10am
· SMART targets Friday 27th May 10am
We are also keen to start our cluster group meetings again from the new academic year and will keep you updated with more information about our new training package and dates over the next few bulletins.
EHCP feedback
At the SEN panel, there have been lots of discussions around ensuring evidence of the Graduated Response. We have had a number of applications turned down over the last few weeks for there being a lack of evidence of the assess, plan, do review cycle. This is not only the setting requests but is also being felt across schools and colleges. There has been some new case law which details the importance of the graduated response to supporting children with additional needs.
The Individual Education Plans that are being submitted need to show that they have been reviewed, that targets are SMART (Specific to the children, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) and that the information from health, the Early Years SEND team and other outside agencies has been followed.
A great way to think about it is using the so what approach: Child x has been seen by speech and language therapist - so what? What did speech and language say? Have they provided targets? Have you implemented the strategies suggested? What was the outcome of the implementation of these strategies? What are the next steps for that child?
There is some further training available on the 13th of May about the graduated response.
Please send completed EHCP needs assessment requests to seneducationteam@medway.gov.uk. If sending via post, please send addressed to SEN Team – EHCP, Level 4 Gun Wharf, Dock Road, Chatham ME4 4TR.
Children’s Therapy Team
The Early Years SEND team are working alongside the Children’s Therapy Team to create a flowchart which demonstrates the differing levels of support available to children and shows the route through this support for children at each step. This piece of work is taking its time as we want to ensure that every possible route is covered, and that no child is left without support or that children end up with a duplication of support services. We are trying to ensure fair access to services for all the children.
There are six weekly meetings with the under 5’s team, the Snapdragon’s Nursery team and the Early Years SEN team where we share information around children who maybe on our caseloads.
Big Builders
Currently, the Early Years SEND team and the Health Teams have looked into the provision of Big Builders. This has, in the past, been something which the Early Years SEND team have taken the lead on and completed the majority of the referrals and work around. We are currently seeing an increase in the numbers of children that are demonstrating a high level of need within nursery settings and for those not yet in nursery and so we are looking for the best way to support the children. With this in mind and the knowledge of 70% of children referred to Big Builders were then referred to Speech and Language Therapy, it led to us making the decision that Big Builders was not working. We have ceased running the group known as Big Builders. We do currently have an alternative provision run by the Early Years SEND team for children who, at their 2.5 year check, are delayed in 2 or more areas and not attending an educational setting. For those children who are delayed in one area there is some work happening within the Health team to address this need.
If a child is attending an education provider, then the support that child receives will be through our SENCO surgery with the education provider. The child coming along to an hour’s long group once a week for 4-6 weeks is not going to have the same impact as the setting working alongside their EY SEND Practitioner to support the child for the amount of time the child is in setting.
The Health Visiting team have been informed of this and have been asked to contact settings directly when they have a child who they feel would previously have benefitted from Big Builders. The Health Visitors should then ask you to raise the child at SENCO surgery if you also agree that there is some level of need for that child.
We are very happy to share with all of our settings the activities we would previously have recommended for Big Builders.
Little Builders
Little Builders group has now been phased out and replaced by an alternative group. The referrals for this group come through from the Health Visiting team’s 1 year review and was for children who are demonstrating delays in two or more areas. They are seen from around 14 months. The purpose of the group is to enable the Early Years SEND Team to discuss the children with parents and begin to plan the early education that is required for them, to look into whether forwarding referrals are necessary and to start to discuss potential early education providers with parents. We are also encouraging parents to begin to socialise with other families and starting to build support networks within the group. We’ve had some families who have not socialised with their children as they would normally do since before the first lockdown. We are using this group to gather information and set targets for the child using the graduated response approach so that we can share all of these with you when that child starts at your setting.
Team contact
If you are unable to contact your EY SEND Practitioner, please try Tina on 01634 334016 or tina.newman@medway.gov.uk or try me on 07773187596. We have all been allocated new work mobile phones last week - your EY SEND Practitioner’s mobile number remains the same. Please give us time to have everything moved over to our new mobile phone units after which we should be able to access both emails and voicemails on our work mobile phones.
Discussion Prompts
Please remember to kindly complete the discussion prompts before SENCO surgery as they really help our discussions and help to guide us on thinking about how best to move forward with supporting the children. If you need another copy of the nursery discussion prompt, it can be accessed on the eLearning website.
eLearning Website
We are still receiving queries on where to look for Early Years SEND forms on 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 still be able to access and download all the forms there.