SEND Guidance for early years providers
Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)
Local offer
Trafford Council publish this Local Offer website to keep parents and young people informed about local provision for children and young people 0-25 years with SEN and those who are disabled.
Every Early Years childcare provider, School or College is required to have information about how they meet the needs of children or young people with SEND. These are called:
- Early Years Local Offer (for childcare and early education)
- SEN Information Report (for schools and colleges)
To help you complete your individual local offer you can use our template and guidance notes:
For Childminders:
Local offer template with guidance notes
For Group Settings:
Local offer template with guidance notes
Trafford Graduated Approach for Early Years
- Cognition and Learning
- Speech and Language
- Social Communication and Interaction
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health
- Physical Medical
- Sensory Impairment Hearing
- Sensory Impairment Visual
Trafford Two Year Old Integrated Review
If the child is aged between two and three years old and you have completed a Progress check at age two you may consider an Integrated Review with Health Visiting.
Transition
Supporting Transitions in the Early Years 2023 - A guide for all practitioners and teachers working in Early Years in Trafford
SEND Funding
Early Years SEND Funding - Trafford Council website
Services that support early years providers
There are a wide variety of services across education, health and social care providing advice on children with SEN or who are disabled. This advice is available for early education providers, other services, parents and carers.
There are a number of services available which offer training, advice and guidance to early years providers:
- Area SENCO
- Children's Centres and Early Help Hubs
- Complex and Additional Needs (CAN) Social Care Team
- Educational Psychology Service
- Health Visiting Teams
- Longford Park School – Outreach Team
- Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy
- SEN Advisory Service (SENAS)
- Sensory Impairment Support Service
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Trafford Early Development Service (TEDS)
Signalong
Signalong is designed to help children and adults with communication difficulties, mostly associated with learning disabilities, autism and other special needs. Trafford early years adopts signalong as the main approach to supporting children with language and communication difficulties in the early years.
Early education providers and schools can access signalong training. View Trafford’s Signs and symbols guidance.
National guidance
The SEND Code of practice 0-25 years (2014) and associated guides for early years settings, schools and FE colleges provides guidance on identification and SEN support should be read alongside this guidance:
SEND: guide for early years settings
SEND: guide for social care professionals
SEND: guide for health professionals
Disabled children and the Equality Act 2010
The Council for Disabled Children produced Disabled children and the Equality Act 2010, a guidance document for early years providers .
The guide looks at disability discrimination duties in the context of duties to all young children, set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and duties to disabled children set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.
It provides a short guide to what early years professionals need to know and do to make sure they don’t discriminate against disabled children.