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Access Tools

These are formal terms used to describe the levels of extra help that are given when an early years setting, such as a nursery, decides that a child has special educational needs (SEN) and needs extra or different help.

Early Years Action

Early years action is the first stage of concern about your child's progress and happens when you or someone who works with your child thinks that your child's needs are not being met by the usual provision in the early years setting. This is likely to be because your child:

• Makes little or no progress
• Has difficulty with literacy or numeracy
• Has emotional or behavioural difficulties
• Has communications difficulties
• Has sensory or physical problems

You will be able to talk to your child's link worker or the special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) about any worries you or they may have about your child. They may ask you about:

• Your child's development
• Your child's health
• How he/she behaves at home
• What you think would help your child

This information will help you to get an overall picture of your child's strengths and weaknesses and help the key worker or SENCO to put together a programme of support for your child. This will include different and extra help to the help that all the children would get on a daily basis. This will be set out and recorded in an Individual Education Plan (IEP).

You should be invited to be part of this process and should be kept informed about your child's progress.

Some of the ways the early years setting might help are:

• A different way of teaching some things that your child finds difficult
• Matching activities to the ability of your child
• Adapting learning materials such as work sheets, books and activities to suit your child's needs.
• Small group work or some individual support (in addition to what the other children get)
• Setting learning or behavioural targets for your child
• Giving you ideas on how you can help your child at home
• Asking you to do things at home.

Early Years Action Plus

If your child does not make enough progress, your child's key worker or the SENCO should talk to you about asking for advice from other people outside the early years setting such as:

• Specialist teacher
• Educational psychologist
• Speech and language therapist
• Health professionals
• Sensory specialist
• Behaviour specialist

They will look at your child's records to get a full picture of their progress, the strategies already used by the early years setting and targets that have been set and achieved. The specialists will also want to talk to you about your child and your views.

Together with the early years setting and parents, the specialists will develop a plan for your child. This may include:

• Regular advice to teachers/staff working with your child
• Training for staff to support your child
• Teaching support
• Equipment and teaching materials
• Information technology
• Specialist Assessment

Any extra help should, as far as possible, be in the normal setting. The plan will be recoreded in a new IEP, which will be monitored and reviewed regularly.

What happens if a child still makes limited progress?

For most children the support given at early years action or early years action plus is enough to help them progress. For a few children this is not the case. The early years setting will then discuss with you what further support may be available from the local authority by requesting a statutory assessment.

The local authority will need to know that all other alternatives have been tried and that over a period of time the child has made little or no progress.