From Carrie White, Early Years SEND Lead Teacher

There’s been a huge change in the weather we have gone from having hose pipe bans to having flooding on the streets of Medway.  It feels like the rain is never going to end, doesn’t it! One thing which has brightened up the outlook for the Early Years SEND Team has been that starting of a new staff member.

Thank you to all of the settings who have submitted their cohort information to us. It has been really helpful in my recent discussions with Ofsted.  I am very happy to continue to receive the information now if you are able to submit it.

We will soon be on the countdown to Christmas and all of the excitement that comes with that.  We still have lots of things planned between now and then - Cluster Briefings, training and still lots of visits to settings.

Team Update

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Faye Harbard who has joined the team this month as our EY Senior SEND Administrator. Faye will be responsible for Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funding. Once Faye has had the opportunity to settle in and get to know the systems, we use we will send her contact details out to every setting in order to provide you will information regarding SENIF.  Over the next couple of months, Faye and I will be working together to address previous issues and look at how the systems can be improved.  You can still request SENIF via a provision map and application form sent to eyhighneeds@medway.gov.uk. We are aware that timing of funding and communication around funding are two of the major areas we need to work on and are looking at ways to address this. Having Faye in the team will enable this to happen as she will be focusing on funding instead of this falling into my remit alongside my other role.

Funding

I have recently met with Kent County Council regarding our reciprocal arrangement for SENIF. Previously we have paid SENIF for Kent children attending a Medway settings and Kent have paid SENIF for Medway children attending Kent settings.  We have agreed now that funding will be paid according to the child’s home address – therefore, if they are a Kent child in a Medway setting, the setting will apply to Kent for the SENIF. Where children already have funding in place, the current funding agreements will not change but when the funding is due to be renewed, you will need to apply to the child’s home local authority. 

We are still happy to discuss the children with you during SENCo Surgery and can still support you with activities.

Applications for SENIF can only be processed the term after the child turns 3 years old. To make an application, you need to complete an application form and a provision map. Please include additional evidence such as therapy reports, IEPs, observation information, notes from SENCO surgery, etc as this allows panel to cross reference the support and ensure you are receiving all the child actually needs.  Please remember that you can claim for up to 15 hours funding. All funding applications are to be sent to eyhighneeds@medway.gov.uk

Invoicing

Please invoice for the previous month/months you can invoice for a month from the first of that month.

Invoice numbers are delaying the process a lot of the time. Please can you ensure you are using the child’s initials, the month and the year, e.g., CW09/2022?  Invoices with just a number e.g.,56 are rejected by the finance team as the system believes it has already paid that invoice.

Training

Thanks to everyone who’s already booked to attend EY SEND training. You should have received a reply confirming your place on the training. The following session is now fully booked:

• Sensory Workshop Tuesday, 31 January 2023 9:30 am to 12:30 pm

Our training offer is free to our settings and open to all members of staff - it does not have to be the SENCO who comes along to the training.  We do have a limit to the number of people at the training session and can only accommodate 1 person per setting, but we are planning to run the sessions a few times over the year.

To sign up, please email Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk with the name of who will be attending.  We will accept bookings until 2 weeks before the course date or when we’ve reached the maximum number of delegates. We encourage those who’ve been put on a training waitlist to contact Tina and book on new dates as soon as you can to secure your place.

May we ask that if you are already confirmed to attend a session and you are not able to attend anymore, please contact Tina via email or at 01634 334016 so we can give your slot to the next person on the waiting list. We also ask that you let us know if someone else is taking a delegate’s place to make sure there is a certificate for the attendee.

For EY SEND Training at Gun Wharf, please note there is no parking available. The nearest paid parking is Chatham Riverside next to Chatham Library or The Pentagon.

Title of training	Date and venue	Maximum Number of Delegates	Session Time
EHCP	Monday, 28 November 2022 at Oaklands Children and Family Well-being Centre ME5 0QS	16	9:30 am to 11 am
Behaviour which challenges	Monday, 16th January 2023 at Oaklands Children and Family Well-being Centre ME5 0QS	16	9:30 am – 12 noon
Using Everyday Resources	Thursday 19th January 2023 Gun Wharf Chatham at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Provision Maps	Tuesday 24th January 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	10 am - 11:30 am
EHCP	Tuesday 24th January 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	1 pm to 2:30 pm
Using Small Steps to Support Learning	Thursday 9th February 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	9:30 am - 11:30 am
Behaviour which challenges	Tuesday, 7th March 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	9:30 am – 12 noon
Sensory Workshop (not suitable for settings who have previously attended sensory training)	Thursday, 16th March 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	15	9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Play Skills	Thursday, 30th March 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	9:30 am – 11:30 am
Play Skills	Thursday, 30th March 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	12:30 pm to 2:30 pm
New to Role of SENCO	Thursday, 27th April 2023 at Medway Council Gun Wharf Meeting Room 1 ME4 4TR	20	9:30 am - 2:30 pm please bring your own lunch

Cluster Briefings

The next cluster briefing will be in March 2023. You only need to attend 1 of the 4 sessions on offer. Again, we can accommodate 1 per setting so please book with Tina Newman at tina.newman@medway.gov.uk to confirm your place. Bookings will be accepted until Monday, 6 February 2023 or when we have reached the maximum capacity for each session.

Please note there is no parking available at Gun Wharf. The nearest paid parking is Chatham Riverside next to Chatham Library or The Pentagon.

Thursday, 9 March 2023

• 9:30 am to 11 am
• 1pm to 2:30 pm

Thursday, 2 March 2023

• 9:30 am to 11 am
• 1pm to 2:30 pm

Level 3 SENCO training

As a Local Authority, we applied to NASEN to deliver this training over a year ago.  The DfE then paused the training offer and has since released who their favoured provider is.  This Level 3 SENCO accreditation award will be delivered by Best Practice Network.  There are some funded places available for settings.  To apply for your space, go to: https://www.bestpracticenet.co.uk/early-years-SENCO

An overview of the course is below taken from the website:

The Level 3 Early Years SENCO qualification is delivered over 4 months through Online Taught Sessions and Online Study Units.

The Online Taught Sessions are 3 hours long and consist of live tutor-led training, incorporating pre-reading tasks, breakout room activities, group discussion and group training. Participants can choose to complete the Online Taught Sessions on either weekday mornings or afternoons. There will also be a limited number of Saturday sessions available.

The Online Study Units are delivered through the Canvas Virtual Learning Environment. Login details and induction training will be provided before the programme starts.

SENCO Surgery

Please find attached to the bulletin the SENCO surgery checklist. Please can you ensure you have the relevant documents with you when you come to SENCO surgery? We really appreciate how busy nursery settings are. However, for a rich discussion, it is really important that the SENCO from the setting is able to concentrate on the discussion and so should not be counted as part of the ratio during the time of the meeting.  Please can we also ask that if you realise you are unable to make the meeting due to lack of time or having to be in ratio that you contact your EY SEND Practitioner to rearrange rather than rush the meeting. Please also note that if a child needs to be observed by the EY SEND Practitioner that this needs to be a separate meeting and we as a team will need the EY Parental Consent Form completed for this.

EY SEND Forms

All SENCo Surgery and funding forms are available to download from the elearningatlast 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.