Local Offer: early years provision

All early years settings registered with Ofsted must follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. As part of this, early years settings are required to have arrangements in place to support children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities.
 

What we expect early years settings to provide for children with SEND

All West Berkshire maintained nursery schools and early years settings are expected to adhere to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (April 2015). You can find the key features of the code of practice relating to early years settings in part 5.

We have picked out some of the key features from part 5 of the Code of Practice below:
 

SEN in the early years 

"5.12 All early years providers are required to have arrangements in place to identify and support children with SEN or disabilities and to promote equality of opportunity for children in their care. These requirements are set out in the EYFS framework (September 2014):

3.67. Providers must have arrangements in place to support children with SEN or disabilities. Maintained nursery schools and other providers who are funded by the local authority to deliver early education places must have regard to the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice 32. Maintained nursery schools must identify a member of staff to act as Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator33 and other providers (in group provision) are expected to identify a SENCO.

The EYFS framework also requires practitioners to review children's progress and share a summary with parents. In addition, the 'Early years outcomes' is an aid for practitioners, including child minders, nurseries and others such as inspectors, to help them to understand the outcomes they should be working towards."