Blackpool Early Years SEND inclusion fund

All children are entitled to an education that enables them to achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes, and become confident young children with a growing ability to communicate their own views and ready to make the transition into compulsory education.

Early Years providers must have arrangements in place to support children with SEN or disabilities. These arrangements should include a clear approach to identifying and responding to children with Special Educational Needs (SEN).

Building on existing good practice in early years settings, and as part of the graduated approach, the SEN Inclusion Fund provides support to early years settings to address the needs of individual children who have emerging and identified special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and to promote and support inclusive practice in settings.

“Additional needs” includes a physical, sensory or learning disability, difficulties in areas such as communication, attention or behaviour and learning difficulties resulting in global developmental delay.

Most children with emerging special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) do not require specialist resources or enhanced levels of staffing to access and be included in their local early years setting With an inclusive approach to implementing the EYFS and in line with their duties under the Equality Act (2010), most early years settings are able to successfully include and address the needs of children with a wide range of SEND. However, it is recognised that there may be times when a short term, targeted and measured intervention, or additional resource would support a child to make progress and improve outcomes.

The funding is provided for children in Early Years provision who have been assessed as having a significant difficulty in one or more Prime Areas of learning which means they need provision that is significantly different from and additional to what is normally provided to other children of the same age. This will be in excess of what can reasonably be expected to be provided to meet the needs of a broad range of children. These children will be in receipt of support from one or more education and/or health professionals beyond the setting specifically for the emerging SEN. This will be in addition to universal services. For children under the age of three, this will require continued involvement of specialist health professionals such as paediatricians.

The Inclusion Fund is intended to support settings with additional resources over and above what would be reasonably expected as part of everyday inclusive practice for the age range of children usually attending the setting, and that is significantly different from what is ordinarily provided for other children of a similar age with a range of strengths and difficulties. This may include, for example:

• the setting SENCO may have to attend meetings, liaise with outside professionals and write additional reports which take them away from his/her normal duties
• there may be more than the usual number of children with additional needs in the setting
• a setting may need to buy equipment to meet the specific needs within the group, which are different from or additional to general resources. We cannot fund resources that should be part of everyday provision through this grant.
• for children who are newly accessing their Early Years provision and require time-limited support during the early stages to ensure a smooth transition into the setting

Use of other sources of funding where applicable must be considered prior to application for inclusion fund, including:

• Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)
• Disability Access Fund payments (DAF)
• Disadvantage supplement paid in addition to funding base rate

All applications must be submitted by the setting following the prescribed processes and agreement and support of the Early Years SEND Advisory Teacher or Educational Psychologist. Applications are made using the Early Years Inclusion Funding application form and  need to be submitted by the last working day of the month for consideration the following month.