Guidance and information for providers of the free early education entitlement for children aged 3 and 4 and for providers of the 2-year old free entitlement has been published. It is called “Supporting Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in the Early Years” and provides information for all providers of the free entitlement for 2, 3 and 4 year olds in Haringey. It fulfils a requirement from the Department for Education (DfE) that the local authority has a published Inclusion Fund for all 3 & 4 year olds and explains how special educational needs (SEN) support for mainstream early years providers is funded.
For many young children, accessing their entitlement is straightforward and requires no more than their parents/carers being able to identify local provision suitable for their children’s needs. For other children, they may have existing or emerging needs that means that for them to gain the full benefit of a high quality early education offer, additional support would need to be put in place. In this guidance and information document, we set out how we will make provision for special education needs and disabilities within Haringey’s Early Years Single Funding Formula (EYSFF).
The document includes a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Thresholds Summary with descriptors written to support settings in identifying which level of support a child requires. It is important that you are already looking at how you are able to adapt your usual practice to meet individual children’s needs. The descriptors are indicative and you should note that a child need not exhibit all the behaviours described to be considered in need of support.
Any queries about applications and decisions should be sent to IASP@haringey.gov.uk and queries about payments should be sent to earlyyearsprovider@haringey.gov.uk.