Early Years SEND Curriculum

What is an inclusive curriculum?

To put it simply, a curriculum is what you want children to learn during their time in your setting. At Dingley’s promise we have spent time carefully considering the key aspects of building a curriculum and how we can ensure that it is accessible and inclusive. The freedom to follow or create a curriculum unique to your early years provision is both exciting and daunting in equal measure, we must ensure that what we provide is sufficient, supportive and true to our vision and values. Our key principles at Dingley’s Promise are wellbeing, individuality, family and the senses, these were derived from our own research and reflection on our pedagogical influences and passion for the unique child. It is vital that our curriculum reflects these principles and provides opportunities for each child to engage and thrive in equal measure within our centres.

Developing an inclusive curriculum

According to Henderson and Lasley (2014), ‘‘inclusion is a philosophy that seeks the acceptance of all learners’’. When considering this with respect to your curriculum it is clear that developing a sense of belonging and respect for the children is the start to developing an inclusive curriculum. Your curriculum should be accessible by all children within your setting, it should demonstrate clearly how individual needs can be met and should represent the cultures and values of your community.

An inclusive curriculum will be able to:

• Nurture individual interests​ 

• Celebrate differences​ 

• Embrace the fact that all children learn and develop in different ways and at different stages​ 

• Have a child-centred approach which offers individualised learning opportunities for all children​ 

• Be flexible and adaptable​ 

• Offer learning through play, alongside guided learning​ 

• Consider the input of all those involved in the child’s life – family and professionals. 

• Be ambitious to allow each child the freedom to develop ideas. 

When you are considering the content of your curriculum it is likely you will be thinking about, your values, the Early Years Foundation Stage and your own knowledge and expertise cumulated over years of working with children. You may also begin to consider the children and practitioners in your setting, the dynamics of your sessions and the community in which you are based. It is at this point that you may start to reflect on who is this curriculum for. Is it a shiny document to promote your setting? A tool to focus practitioners on their practice? Or is it for the children and designed to ensure they thrive in your setting and leave you armed with the skills to access life’s opportunities? Hopefully whilst the first two can be a bonus, the primary function of your curriculum is to support the children within your care to be successful in life, and when you start to consider the society in which we now live, you can see why it is so important for your curriculum to be inclusive and to teach inclusive practices.

An inclusive curriculum ensures you consider all the children within your care and what they may need, it strives for every child to feel involved, valued and able to access their education and it supports a culture of inclusion within your provision. By building inclusion into your foundations, you are able to fully value each child, adapt for individual needs and set children up with the tolerance and respect to value inclusive behaviours throughout life.

Structuring your curriculum

When considering the layout and setup of our curriculum we chose to develop 4 curriculum pathways. We thought about what we want our children to learn during their time with us and then focused our curriculum on this.

These pathways took influence from the four broad areas of need, linking environment to learning outcomes which demonstrate what, with an enabling environment, time and support, children can achieve. Our pathways consider the environment required for effective learning opportunities and provides learning outcomes in the form of ‘I can’ statements which celebrate progress and increase confidence and capability.

We have chosen to avoid using age ranges in our curriculum design, accepting that all children reach milestones at different times and learn in unique ways. Instead, we have built the curriculum in stages to ensure that each activity is built on to encourage developmental progression.

The stages give clear ideas of how to develop an activity in order to enhance learning and encourage progression. It can support educators who are less experienced to identify the next steps within an activity and ensure that the activities remain child centered. It is however still important to recognise that not all children will develop in a linear fashion and educators should promote the strengths, skills and interests seen.

In addition to providing clear stages of scaffolded learning, our curriculum outlines a range of enhancement programmes that educators can implement, extend and adapt, based on the progress of children and their interests. These enhancements are designed to make the most of the opportunities offered to us by seasonal changes.

Our SEND assessment toolkit, developed in collaboration with the DfE, can help to identify emerging SEND needs and track progress.

Reflecting on your curriculum

As a general guide when considering your curriculum implementation, educators may wish to look at their ordinarily available provision and work with your local authority to consider your inclusive practice. Your ordinarily available provision can be further enhanced through any reasonable adjustments you may need to make to meet a child’s individual needs. 

Consider a provision audit. Within Dingley’s Promise we have developed a provision checklist to ensure that all our settings take a consistent approach and that their setting is fully accessible to all children with a wide range of needs. This audit tool is overseen by the leadership team and shared with the whole team to reflect together on how their setting supports: the unique child, positive relationships, enabling environments, learning and development. By using the reflective practice sheet each educator can be included in the development of the setting. 

You may find yourself looking at:

• how experiences could be offered at different heights so that they are accessible to both mobile and non-mobile children or children using physical aids
• the types of communication methods readily available in the environment such as objects of reference, photographs and clearly labelling resources
• the adaptability of resources provided to develop new skills, such as ensuring there are multiple sets of resources and adapted resources to include all children

Team reflection supports curriculum development as it not only identifies areas of best practice to create inclusive environments but provides information from educators taken from observations of the children and room, patterns of play, schematic learning, wellbeing and engagement. This supports the curriculum by keeping it live and reflective of children’s needs and interests. 

The environment should be carefully considered when developing your curriculum. For example, activities could be provided at different heights to be fully accessible to both mobile and non-mobile children or children using physical aids. 

Adding communication methods to the environment such as objects of reference and photographs, clearly labelling resources or considering auditory stimulation and creating a quieter space or area within the room may also be helpful.

It is important to look at your resources and ensure that there is a variety available which caters for differing needs whilst providing opportunities to develop new skills. This includes multiple sets of resources and adapted resources to include all children e.g. tabletop scissors. 

Educators should readily observe children in play to identify how they are engaging with the environment, what they are learning, and decide on what potential changes could be made to improve the learning experience for individual children.

You can also read our How to adapt and maintain a high-quality curriculum blog here.