Early Years SEND Assessment Guidance
Dingley’s Promise are delighted to launch the Early Years SEND Assessment Guidance in collaboration with the Department for Education.
Dingley’s Promise are responding to the current crisis in early years by launching the Assessment Guidance for Early Years SEND. The guidance, which will be launched by the DfE on their website and within their training modules, aims to support early identification of emerging SEND needs in a practical and standardised way. The guidance has been created in response to demand from those in early years who are concerned that assessment processes for children with SEND can be extremely time consuming and often not fit for purpose.
The guidance has been created in response to demand from those in early years who are concerned that assessment processes for children with SEND can be extremely time consuming and often not fit for purpose. It links directly to the areas of need highlighted in the EYFS and has practical tools and resources to support the assessment process. The resources have been created to support a child-centred, strengths-based approach to assessing children’s needs. They will focus on assessing the development of each unique child and providing a simple approach to identifying and meeting their needs as soon as possible.
As the guidance launches nationally, the aim is that it will be adopted by settings and local authorities to achieve a simpler and more consistent assessment process. This will reduce stress on families and on professionals, as it reduces the duplication of effort in filling in a range of different forms, and even between local authority areas the process will be the same.
“We are delighted to finally launch this guidance nationally, having worked in collaboration with the DfE as part of our vision to create a more inclusive early years sector, and are excited to see this hard work come to fruition. We hope that it will improve early intervention that is so critical for improving life outcomes for children with SEND. We are grateful to all those who helped in the development of this guidance by giving their feedback on draft versions, including settings, local authorities, health professionals and early years experts”
Catherine McLeod – CEO Dingley’s Promise
“At the Alliance, we believe every child, without exception, should be given the best possible start in life. As such, we warmly welcome these new resources, which will provide much-needed guidance to early years providers and help ensure that children with SEND get the support they need, when they need it.”
Neil Leitch – CEO Early Years Alliance