Today we welcome Kier Starmer’s commitment to Break Down Barriers to Opportunity and Giving Children the Best Start in Life.
The labour government are demonstrating a recognition of the barriers facing our youngest children with identified or emerging SEND needs, and a willingness to act to address them.
They recognise that 80% of parents have struggled to access services and families of children with SEND are amongst the most impacted within this statistic, with many being unable to access their early years entitlement.
Early intervention for children and support for families, such as is provided by Dingley’s Promise, is vital to the long-term outcomes of children and we are grateful for the acknowledgement that much more funding, training and support is required at in the earliest years of life to set children on the right track and help them fulfil their potential.
We are encouraged to see the emphasis on training and have been working tirelessly to support the sector with early years training which can have a significant impact on levels of confidence in the workforce and the achievement of whole setting inclusion.
Mr Starmer is correct in his statement that “high-quality early education and childcare to set every child up for success” and we are committed to ensuring that all early years educators have high quality training, which enables them to effectively meet the needs of all children with a wide range of additional needs in their setting.
The responses of settings who have taken up our training directly reflect the impact it is having, and we hope to see many more settings across the country benefiting.
“A valuable whole team exercise that enhanced our practice, informed our professional conversations and supported our growth to being better equipped to move forward our SEND inclusion practice”.
“DP training has solidified the learning for all the practitioners in the setting. Staff now have a greater insight as to why we do what we do and it has increased their passion to ensure we maintain our inclusive practice for the benefit of current and future children”.
We look forward to working with the Department for Education and Ministers to ensure that positive action is taken to turn these statements of intent and to continue to raise awareness of the SEND Assessment Guidance with settings and local authorities, to ensure it is adopted across the country to benefit children, families and settings
Click here to read Labours Mission to Give Every Child the Best Start in Life: https://www.gov.uk/missions/opportunity
Find more about Dingley’s Promise Inclusion training for early years educators here: About Our Training – Dingley’s Promise
Explore the Early Years SEND Assessment Toolkit developed by Dingley’s Promise in partnership with the Department for Education here: https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/support-for-practitioners/send-assessment