SEN Early Years Resources

This webpage has been created to give Early Years Practitioners and Parents/Carers easy access to relevant information and resources to support young children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. There is also a downloadable quick reference guide to the Most popular SEN Early Years Resources 2019.

Please click on the images below for information and resources relevant to that subject area.

The following sections below have additional information and guidance that will further support your inclusive practice in settings, and assessment of individual children's strengths and needs. Please click on the images below to jump straight to these sections.

Developing Inclusive Practice

Makaton Friendly places

The Makaton Friendly places scheme recognises places that strive to make their services accessible for people who use Makaton to support their communication. For more information about the scheme, including frequently asked questions visit the Makaton Friendly section on the Makaton Charity website. The Let's talk Makaton Youtube Channel provides lots of video clips on useful individual Makaton signs and symbols.

Portage Stamp of Approval

The National Portage Association (NPA) Stamp of Approval Scheme is an award given to early year’s settings who have demonstrated they deliver inclusive early years education based upon Portage Principles. There are lots of other useful resources available on the Portage Support Hub, some are free and some require membership (£35 per year) to download.

I CAN - The Communication Trust and Consortium

The I CAN website has a range of freely downloadable resources that will help adults to support young children’s communication and interaction, including resources developed by The Communication Trust.

The Autism Education Trust (AET)

The Autism Education Trust Early Years Programme offers training and resources for professionals working in various early years settings for children up to 5 years.

The AET has developed outstanding, evidence-based resources to support you in your practice. Specific tools, research articles, films, strategies and more…including some very useful ‘Bite-Sized’ learning resources.

NASEN - Early Years Training and Resources

Nasen offers a range of training opportunities and resources specifically for leaders and practitioners, working in the Early Years (EY).

Small Step Assessments

Early Years Sensory Processing Profile

Supporting children’s emotional responses using a STAR Chart – Settings, Triggers, Actions and Responses

Please see the guidance document and blank template added in the downloads section on the right-hand side of this webpage.

What to expectin Early Years Fondation Stage (EYFS): a guide for parents

Click on the title above or image below to open this document as a pdf.

ICAN Charity - Early Talk Boost Tracker

Attention Levels and Strategies

Please see the document added in the downloads section on the right-hand side of this webpage.

Early Support Programme Developmental Journal Materials

Although the DfE Early Support Programme is no longer currently running, all the materials remain relevant and up to date, apart from a few of the links, and are now available through The Council for Disabled Children website:

Learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) in the Early Years

Please see the following documents in the downloads section on the right-hand side of this webpage

Tracking language delelopment of children learning EAL - exemplar
Practical Strategies to support children with EAL
Child observation sheet for Early Years EAL

Early Communication and Language monitoring tool

This tool outlines key milestones in speech, language and communication development to support identification of children’s needs in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

The purpose of this tool is to help assess a child’s level of development in order to make informed decisions about what the child needs to learn and be able to do next. The tool can help practitioners to notice whether a child is at risk of falling behind in their development and supports early identification of the need for referral for specialist support.

Autism Observation Profile

The purpose of the observation profile is to enhance the teacher’s ability to assess the young child’s progress in developing skills and understanding in those areas which are typically impaired in autism.

The Autism Observation Profile works well alongside the Autism Education Trust Early Years Competency Framework. This framework sets out the skills, knowledge and understandings that staff require to work effectively with children with autism.

One Page Profiles

A one-page profile captures the essence of the child’s character and needs, and acts as a starting point in getting to know them. It isn’t designed to replace the reports written by health and educational professionals, but should be a representation of the child’s own thoughts and views. A profile needs to be included when requesting an EHCP needs assessment for a child.

Strategies that support children with SEND can often be beneficial to their friends and peers as well. To be more inclusive, you may want to consider doing One Page Profiles with all children on transition into your setting, and review them when things change, or as an ongoing discussion forum with the family/child that’s updated regularly.

The following YouTube clip explains the benefit and value of using One Page Profiles from the points of view of children and staff members’

One page profile - examplar

Resources (sheffkids.co.uk) is a really usefull place to find a wide range of one page profile templates including but not limiteed to Pepa pig, In the Night Garden, Paw Patrol, Waybuloo, Mr Tumble etc.

The Engagement Model

Engagement is crucial before targeted learning can happen. The engagement model aims to provide a ‘better fit’ way of noticing and acknowledging children’s responses to their world when other ways of doing this are not working well. For further information, guidance, blank template and exemplars please see the following documents in the downloads section on the right hand side of this webpage: