Last week IPPR published a report paper assessing the situation facing the new UK government, as they try to ‘break down the barriers to opportunity’ whilst rolling out the new childcare entitlements. In considering some of the key delivery challenges and choices it faces and the potential impacts on children and families, it raises some important points.
Read the full report here
The childcare challenge: How can the new government deliver a real childcare guarantee? | IPPR
We welcome this report’s detailing of the deep inequalities in funding, especially for children with SEND, stating that “the government should increase the generosity of funding for children with special educational needs (SEND) to ensure that settings are paid fairly and equitably for the additional support they provide and remove any disincentives to taking children with SEND – while also improving processes to make additional funding quicker and easier to access”. The new DfE guidance on EY funding once again states how these streams should be used and the importance of directing the High Needs Block funding to early years, which is vital in addressing the current inequalities in the system.
We are pleased that the report acknowledges the improvements needed in SENIF and DAF applications, which are time-consuming and a significant barrier for settings trying to access vital funding in a timely way to support children. It highlights our concern about the impact of the current application process on families access highlighting that “it is only accessible to families who have the confidence and readiness to take this route. Many parents feel understandably reluctant to apply while a child’s needs are still emerging at such a young age. This may explain why there tend to be significant underspends in DAF (Dingley’s Promise, 2023).
The report rightly states that the SEND system generally is at breaking point and needs weaning off such heavy dependence on EHCPs (Bryant et al, 2024), meaning greater recognition of emerging needs in the early years within mainstream funding. It recommends the need to find a ‘clear way to measure progress and needs of children’ but the report overlooks the recent launch of the SEND Assessment and Guidance created by Dingley’s Promise in collaboration with the Department for Education, which provide a clear and consistent method of identifying emerging SEND needs. This underlines the need for this resource to be shared more widely and adopted by settings, families, health professionals, LAs and schools, to create consistency in approach, where all stakeholders are using the same documents and the language and expectations are consistent for families, avoiding unnecessary repetition of information by families which is both tiring and emotionally triggering.
The research highlights the need for ‘suitable provision available to all, stating, “free entitlement funding does not adequately meet the costs of delivering to more vulnerable or disadvantaged children. This means it is not a level playing field for those children or the providers who serve them – and it can be a disincentive to taking them” however we are disappointed that none of the recommendations in this section respond directly to the needs of children with SEND, whom it identifies as one of the failed groups by the system. We have seen first hand the difficulties accessing support which are acknowledged by the report as ‘not incentivising providers to go down formal pathways and put children on a long-term ‘SEND track’ unnecessarily’. Where effective early intervention is in place children’s long-term outcomes can be transformed.
The report raises significant issues in the measurement of sufficiency within local authorities. “Although annual sufficiency assessments are required to be conducted, this often appears a tick-box exercise. The extent of local intelligence gathered about the market and where there may be real gaps that require action is limited by staff capacity and lack of commissioning expertise in early years teams’. From our knowledge working with local authorities, we know the importance of the Childcare Sufficiency Assessments, and how vital it is that they consider of the supply and demand of provision for children with SEND. Without this information, local area decision makers cannot fully understand the scale of the issue and planning for improvements or next stages of education is impossible. We have developed a number of resources in collaboration with Coram Hempsalls as part of their Childcare Works Programme to support the assessment and planning of sufficiency as well supporting local authorities to be more inclusive, these can be accessed here.
The report recognises the need to link SENIF to CPD; it refers to the Anna Freud survey of 900 nursery workers, which found that many feel extremely underprepared to meet some of the more difficult situations when dealing with children with challenging and complex backgrounds (Album J et al, 2021). which is important. To remove the current barriers to whole setting inclusion, we recommend that all practitioners are required to complete inclusion training, placing the emphasis on the role of inclusive practice with all professionals, rather than SEND focused support sitting solely in the domain of the SENCO.
Finally, we must acknowledge that systems cannot be improved without SEND being integral to these discussions from the very start. The report recognises notes ‘The challenge of meeting the increasingly complex needs of children also relates to a lack of effective join-up and integration with wider support systems’. All too often major strategic decisions are made and only afterwards are questions raised about how this will affect children with SEND and their families. This is too late and the impact of this is extremely damaging. SEND specialists such as Dingley’s Promise must be part of the conversation when consulting and coproducing with families and organisations working in the area, to assess risks of any new initiatives and to ensure that SEND does not become an afterthought but is a crucial consideration in every planning stage..
Without a shift in approach and actively targeting an improvement of Early Years services specifically for children with SEND, the government will simply not be able to reach its target of 75% of children reaching a good level of development by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) assessment by 2028.
