SEND Support: Emerging Needs

Assessment arrangements must be robust enough to identify a delay in any area, particularly the prime areas. Young children are individuals, they have different personalities and may develop at different paces. A delay in some areas does not necessarily mean that a child has SEND, however, it should alert practitioners to emerging needs or possible SEND and enable timely support.

Additional resources and processes will be needed to supplement and build upon what the setting is already doing. These processes are broadly identified in this section and in each of the areas of need supplemental assessment relating to each area is identified.

Progress check at age two

Between the ages of two and three practitioners have a statutory duty to provide parents/ carers with a summary of their child’s development in the prime areas. This must identify:

• The child’s strengths
• Areas where the child’s progress is less than expected

If there are significant emerging concerns, or an identified special educational need or disability, a targeted plan to support the child’s learning and development should be developed in collaboration with parents or carers.

Coordinating the information from the Healthy Child review with the progress check and fostering a good working relationship with Health Visiting teams is an advantage to enable the best outcomes for children.

The SEN Code of Practice categorises children’s SEN in the following four broad areas of need:

• Communication and Interaction
• Cognition and Learning
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health
• Sensory and Physical Needs

A delay or concern may or may not mean that a child has SEN, but will need careful monitoring, ongoing conversation with parents and carers, signposting, and action where appropriate. The purpose of identification is to enable the setting to support the child most effectively. It is not to give each child a label identifying their needs and not every child will fit into a category of needs. In practice, individual children often have needs across more than one area and their needs may change over time.

The role of the setting SENCo is key in supporting practitioners to identify and respond to the needs of children with emerging needs and SEND. The support provided to an individual child should always be based on a full understanding of their strengths and needs and seeking to support them all.

The benefits of early identification are widely recognised – identifying needs at the earliest point, and then making effective provision improves long-term outcomes for children. Identification of emerging needs or SEND should be in partnership with parents and carers building on the strong foundations of the established working relationship.

What practitioners need to effectively identify needs:

• Partnership with parents and carers – Practitioners should seek to work in genuine partnership with parents and carers. They know their child best and can provide a wealth of information on how their child plays and interacts at home and in other situations. Practitioners should understand that children can behave very differently across environments.
• Knowledge of the child – Practitioners should use their knowledge of the child to identify the child’s strengths and interests, schemas, play skills and areas to develop, identified through interactions, observations, and assessment in communication with parents, carers and other practitioners who work with the child to gather a full understanding of the child.
• Understanding of child development – Children all develop at different rates and in diverse ways but a good understanding of what to expect when is crucial when identifying possible emerging needs.

Can be used to summarise a meeting or discussion about a child’s needs either with the child’s parents or carers and or with involved professionals. Circle the area of the graduated response (assess, plan, review) that relates to the process occurring during the meeting.

To summarise what actions have occurred across a period to address the child’s needs. This provides a pen picture for all involved. It is important to include what the setting is doing as well as advice from outside agencies.

To use if you would find it helpful to record key points in the assessment and support of children with emerging needs and SEND, this could be used alongside or instead of the Graduated Approach Cycle.

Additional observations should be completed using the targeted observation sheet (or similar). These observations and subsequent assessments should focus on the areas of concern within the prime areas.

Forms to use to support this section

• Summary of Observations
  When initial concerns are identified observations will be key in developing an understanding of the child’s needs. Depending on the children’s needs several types of observations may be useful, this form will allow you to bring the information gathered from several observations to form a bigger picture of the child’s needs.
• Patterns of Behaviour
  It is to be used when there is any behaviour or activity that is causing concern, this helps to establish a pattern to the behaviour. Practitioners can then implement appropriate support to allow the child to succeed or take further actions.
• Complex Medical or Physical Needs Risk Assessment
  To record risks and actions to respond to a child’s complex medical or physical needs.

The plan should be identified e.g., targets, strategies, and involvement from agencies if appropriate.

Forms to support this section

• My Individual Child Plan
  Identifies the child’s needs and support for the short term, in collaboration with parents and carers. Specific targets are set, and strategies that will be put in place to support the child daily are identified.

• Enhanced Support Strategies
  Key to supporting the child with emerging needs and SEND is the day-to-day enhanced support and strategies to support the child’s access and development. This needs to be used alongside the Individual Child Plan and it will be useful in referring to Early Support or for an EHC Needs Assessment.

• Plan for Supporting Positive Interactions
  To be used once a Pattern of Behaviour observation has been completed. Summarises key assessments relating to the child’s interactions. A plan is established to support the whole staff team to implement agreed strategies to support the child to engage positively and respond to behaviours causing a concern.

Consistently implement and evidence the additional provision put in place, as identified in the plan

Forms to support this section

• My Individual Child Plan Tracking Sheet
  To be used to summarise the implementation of the targets on ICP. This is an aide memoir and will support practitioners to make an accurate assessment at the point of review.

Using the evidence gathered in the previous stages, in partnership with parents and carers identify how additional provision has impacted the child’s needs and development. The review will inform the next assessment of the child’s needs and continue the cycle.

The review is built into all relevant forms and should be an ongoing process.