What are special educational needs for children under 5?

Arrange to visit some settings and have a chat to the staff about your child’s individual needs. Every setting has a Special Education Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO), they have knowledge and experience of supporting children with SEND. Click here to find childcare.

Your health visitor can help you to understand what your child might need before they start at a nursery, childminder or pre-school. Health visiting service – telephone 0300 123 6629.

There is also an Early Years outreach team that can support parents to find the right childcare for their child and signpost to help with childcare costs.

Contact 2yroldfunding@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

There are various offers of childcare support available to families depending on the age of your child and your individual circumstances.

Find out more on the Best Start In Life Parent Hub and check what support you could be eligible for by using the eligibility checker under ‘Find the options available to you’ on the Best Start In Life Parent Hub.

The Disability Access Fund (DAF) supports children with disabilities or special educational needs (SEND).

All children will be eligible for the DAF if they meet the following criteria:

• The child is in receipt of child Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and
• The child is eligible for early education funding and are taking up a funded childcare place.

Your childcare provider will be eligible to receive disability access funding, which is £975 per child per year, to help them make reasonable adjustments to their setting to support your child. Speak to your childcare provider for more information on how to apply for the funding.

Once your child is taking their free early education funding at a setting the setting may be able to apply for Special Educational Needs and Disability Inclusion Funding (SENDIF). It is the setting who applies for SENDIF+ and they request how they want the additional funding to be used. This can be for purchase of resources, access to specialist training or to enhance staff ratios but it is not for continuous one-to-one funding. Speak to your childcare provider for further information on how they apply for this funding.

Find childcare in Portsmouth here.

There are very limited number of specialist places at Mary Rose Academy provided by Solent Academies Trust for nursery age children. The Portsmouth Early Years Panel allocate places and a child must be known to panel and have significant and complex needs. Contact your Health Visitor for more information

You can find out more here. Have a chat to your child’s health visitor and early years setting. In Portsmouth the assessment for an EHCP is usually considered the year before they are due to start school.

Before a child moves into another setting or school, their support should include lots of activities that plan and prepare them for the move – this is often called transition planning.

If your child has an education Health and Care Plan, this should also include information on the things that will be put in place to help them move from their old setting to the new one.

The types of support activities that may be used are:

• Extra visits for your child to their new education setting.
• Visual supports – such as photographs, books or even short video clips of their new setting.
• Lots of information sharing between the old setting, the new setting and parents and carers.

Each transition plan of support will be different and developed around the individual child’s needs.