Early years

Training and events

The Early Years Network Forum dates have been added for the 2023/24 school year. SENCo’s and early years leads are invited to attend. Visit the Early Years Events and Training page to see what’s on and book.

Early Years Events and Training

Grimsby Institute offers a range of free training on SEND. Have you seen the free distance learning on neuroscience in Early Years? Level 2 Award in an Introduction to Neuroscience in Early Years | Distance Learning (distance-learning-courses.co.uk).

The KIDS South Bank Sleep Service is funded by Humber Transforming Care Partnership.

Children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are far more likely than their peers to have sleep problems.

These may include difficulty going to sleep, waking frequently throughout the night or waking easily in the morning.

Our highly experienced senior sleep practitioners deliver sector specific training, including early years and primary school training to all

professionals working with children from age one year, where the child lives in North or North East Lincolnshire or has a GP in this area. Training is offered online or face-to-face.

In addition, we accept referrals for children where parents would like one-to-one specialist sleep clinic support. Parents are provided with advice, a sleep plan and support via telephone calls.

For enquiries, to book training or to refer a family, please email: sleepservicenorthandnel@kids.org.uk.

Download the Early Years flyer and booking form.

Early Years Flyer Download

External Agencies Referral form N and NE Lincs Download

Early Years Inclusion Funding

The Early Years Inclusion Fund is designed to support settings with resourcing solutions to support a graduated response to meet the needs of children in their setting.

Dates for this year’s EYIF requests are as follows:

Term dates for EYIF 23/24

Term	Closing date for requests	Decision panel date	Feedback to settings
Autumn	16 June 2023	26 June 2023	W/C 10 July 2023
Spring	30 November 2023	12 December 2023	W/B 18 December 2023
Summer	8 March 2024	20 March 2024	W/B 25 March 2024

SEN drop-in surgeries will follow with dates and times. As always, this funding should not be relied upon for 1:1 support.

All settings are expected to provide evidence of the graduated response already implemented to endeavour to meet a child’s needs.

The impact of COVID on Early Years children has further challenged already stretched requests for specialist support and assessment through specialist routes. This is challenging everyone involved in education, health and care provision for children to rethink how support can be effectively delivered to those settings and children who need it.

Education recovery in early years providers: spring 2022 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Settings need to consider what it is that they need to support the child effectively. Whilst a large proportion of applications are for 1:1 full time funding for a member of staff, this is not sustainable and sets an expectation that a child will always need an adult with them to access a setting.

We are encouraging settings to think differently and consider what equipment, training, or specialist support a child might need to accelerate their progress.

All Early Years settings are responsible for implementing both the SEND Code of Practice (2014) and the Equality Act (2010).

This year we are going to have two different routes for providing support:

Individual support (existing application process)
Setting support (Training, equipment, specialist support)

All sections of the application form must be completed, including the family outcomes section to highlight the partnership working between setting and family.

In addition to this, additional evidence can be added which includes:

Health visitor information and assessments
Professional reports e.g. speech and language, specialist teacher

Download the Early Years Inclusion Funding individual support example (Word, 392 KB)

Download the Early Years Inclusion Funding Individual support form (Word, 386 KB)

This term we are also going to trial a setting support form, which considers strategically what your setting might need to further support a group of children through an equipment or training purchase instead.

Please remember that this is a small inclusion fund and the first time we have trialled this approach. We wouldn’t be looking to fund anything above £2,500 in the first instance.

The same child cannot be referred in the same round for both types of funding.

We will be looking for examples of good practise through these requests to measure the impact and share with other settings and influence options for future allocation of funding.

Download the Early Years Inclusion Funding for settings request form (Word, 114 KB) .

If you have any questions or want to submit your request form, then please email helena.wilkinson@nelincs.gov.uk.

Important Documents

Early Years Observation parent consent form (Word, 55KB)

Signposting

Parent carers should know about the Early years page on the Local Offer. There is information on training and workshops, childcare, and more.

NELC SEND Local Offer | Early years (nelincs.gov.uk)