Early Years Improvement Team
Learning, Skills and Education
Inclusion Audit 2016-2017
Setting name: x / Type of provision: x / Manager: xDate and time of visit: x / W&EN / D&SN / K&C / N
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Date of current Ofsted: x
Outstanding / Good / Requires improvement / Inadequate / School managed / Newly registered
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Setting Improvement Contact – EY Team:
x / Setting contacts present:
x
E-mail:
@northamptonshire.gov.uk / Setting e-mail:
x
Telephone:
x / Setting telephone:
x
Any issues identified should feed into the setting improvement plan.
Yes / Partly / No / Evidence, Comments and ActionsSetting approach to inclusion
The setting is fully committed to Equality Act 2010 (EA) and the SEND Code of Practice (CoP) 2015. The setting is welcoming to a family irrespective of the child’s needs and has a proactive approach to organising provision for any child.
- Is an Inclusion/Special Education Needs (SEN) policy in place which reflects the anticipatory duty of the Code of Practice 2015? E.g. is ready and prepared to meet the needs for any child or at least explore the possibility of meeting the child’s needs and be prepared to make reasonable adjustments).
- How do you ensure that all staff are fully committed to inclusive practice?
The setting demonstrates an inclusive approach to delivering the EYFS in line with SEND Code of Practice 2015 and demonstrates a positive approach to receiving children with additional needs which includes following the graduated approach for SEN support.
- How do your admission and settling-in procedures reflect your inclusive approach?
- How do you evidence that you follow the graduated approach?
- Are parents and children’s views gathered and acted upon?
The setting has experience in supporting children with a range of additional needs and plans appropriate differentiation and support for individual children.
- Have you experience of supporting children with a range of additional needs?
- What evidence do you have to show appropriate differentiated and personalised support? E.g. Education Health Care (EHC) plan, action planning and target setting, differentiated planning highlighting target children, visual prompts in the environment and provision mapping.
Leadership and management
The setting effectively identifies children who require additional arrangements to be made and refers to the NCC Early Years descriptors.
- What do you use to support effective identification of children with additional needs?
- Are you aware of the local offer and how to access local information?
- Are there robust systems to support early identification?
The Special Education Needs Co-ordinator/Inclusion Co-ordinator (SENCo/INCo) and staff have ownership of the policy, which has clear, parent friendly descriptions of the setting’s SEND process.
- Have all staff been involved in the updating of the SEND policy in line with Code of Practice 2015?
- Is the policy easily read and understood by parents/carers?
The setting has at least one member of staff that has updated training on the EHA (Early Help Assessment)/CAF (Common Assessment Framework)
There is evidence from the setting of SEND/Inclusion training being disseminated.
- What evidence is there that the setting disseminates training to all staff? E.g. messages cascaded to all staff, staff meeting minutes and agendas, recent CPD and attendance at Inclusion Cluster meetings and NIMP Association (Northamptonshire Inclusion and Mentoring Partnership Association)
- Share any evidence of impact from SEND training
The setting retains knowledge from training, independently transfers it between staff and generalises it to other children.
- Are your staff confident and knowledgeable and ensure that both practice and provision meets the needs of children with additional needs?
- What evidence is there that staff can transfer knowledge and skills in supporting a child with additional needs to subsequent children with similar needs?
The setting takes responsibility for staff CPD and trains new staff within the induction process to understand their obligations and processes with regard to SEND. Staff turnover is planned so it does not interrupt provision for a child with additional needs and/or SEND support.
- Do the leadership team ensure that systems are in place to ensure that new and existing staff understand their obligations and processes?
- How do you minimise interruptions to children’s provision in the event of staff changes?
Robust observation and identification processes for children with SEND are apparent throughout the setting and all staff aware of the graduated approach. Staff are sensitive to parent’s readiness to discuss their child’s needs.
- How do you ensure that observation and identification processes for children with SEND are robust and consistent across the setting?
- What evidence do you have to support this?
- Are staff sensitive to the needs of parents and prepared to tackle difficult conversations?
The setting is aware of and follows legal requirement for SEND Code of Practice 2015 and Equality Act 2010.
- Are all your policies for SEND and Inclusion in line with SEND CoP 2015?
The setting proactively supports ongoing training for SENCo/INCo and staff.
- What evidence do you have of this? E.g. training matrix, evidence of staff meetings, in house training, attendance at Inclusion Network meetings, coaching and mentoring, NIMP Association, setting to setting support.
Management are proactively committed to meeting the needs of all children in their setting and supporting their SENCo/INCo. Is time planned for the SENCo to do the role?
-Consider recruitment and induction processes to ensure that there is a commitment to inclusion.
- How do you maintain a commitment to inclusion which is shared by all staff?
The Management team demonstrates a positive attitude and approach to making reasonable adjustments, as per Equality Act 2010. They understand their anticipatory duty to be ready and prepared to meet the needs of all children.
- How do you keep updated with local information regarding multi-agency professionals and other settings?
- What evidence do you have of preparations prior to a child starting at the setting? E.g. admission meetings, risk assessments and transition documents.
- How is the setting prepared to welcome and explore ways of meeting children’s needs?
- How do you ensure that all staff know how to respond appropriately within the legal requirements?
Knowledge of current processes and eligibility criteria is evident.
The setting can independently make a request for involvement to a range of outside agencies as needed. These may include; Health Visitor, Speech And Language Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Portage SEN Early Years Team, General Practitioners, Virtual School, Multi Sensory Service and Physiotherapy.
- Are you aware of the processes to request involvement from a range of agencies, including High Needs Panel, Early Years Panel and NHS Referral Management Centre?
- What evidence do you have of multi-agency working?
- Is there evidence that staff are familiar and using the Northamptonshire’s SEN descriptors?
- Are staff familiar with the local offer and how to access resources and professionals at the appropriate level?
The Leadership team is effectively using funding e.g. Notional SEN, SEN premium, EYPP (Early Years Pupil Premium) and High Needs funding and measure its impact on narrowing gaps in children’s outcomes.
- How do you ensure that all eligible children are identified?
- How does the setting promote EYPP to parents/carers?
- Are you aware of your indicative budget that identifies the notional SEN?
- How do you monitor the impact of interventions and the spend e.g. through provision mapping, cohort tracking of vulnerable groups?
Role of SENCo/INCo
The setting has a Level 3 practitioner who is the named SENCo/INCo who has attended recent relevant training with time allocated to manage the role effectively.
- There is an expectation that every setting has a named SENCo/INCo who is responsible for coordinating support for children with additional needs.
- The SENCo/INCo has attended Qualifying SENCo/INCo training within the last three years or the update training for those that are more experienced.
The setting has an experienced and confident Level 3 SENCo/INCo, carrying out the role effectively, and has attended further training and professional development.
- Does the setting have an Enhanced skilled SENCo/INCo?
- Does the Enhanced skilled SENCo offer any setting to setting support?
- Is the Enhanced SENCo a NIMP member or involved in any mentoring partnerships?
The SENCo/INCo attends regular training and shares/develops knowledge.
- Is there evidence of recent training attended by the SENCo/INCo?
- How confident is the SENCo/INCo to disseminate key messages?
SENCo/INCo has a clear idea of the indicators that a child may need additional help and practitioners have good knowledge of child development and recognise whether a child is showing a typical level of development for their age and/or making sufficient progress.
- How do you ensure all practitioners are making best fit judgements of whether the child is developing typically for their age and making sufficient progress?
- How confident are staff in using key documentation? E.g. Progress Check at age two, Portage Developmental Profile, individual progress tracker, observations and assessments
Good quality interventions take place as described in the Northamptonshire Descriptors i.e. additional support, specific individual support and High Needs request as appropriate. Setting documents show evidence of the graduated approach.
- What documentation do you have to support the graduated approach?
- What evidence do you have of adaptations to provision?
- How confident is the SENCo/INCo in using the Northamptonshire’s SEN descriptors?
- How confident is the SENCo/INCo in supporting staff with all of the above?
The SENCo/INCo can make a request for involvement with appropriate and relevant documentation of additional support to evidence an application.
- Have you any evidence of successful requests for involvement from a range of agencies?
- Does your documentation identify clearly the levels of need to support applications? E.g. quality observations, tracking, action planning and target setting, specific observations – ABCs and/or additional assessments.
The SENCo/INCo is familiar with the Northamptonshire SEN descriptors, Education Health Care plans (EHC) and High Needs Panel processes.
- The SENCo/INCo is familiar with processes and documentation which include One page profile, Portage Developmental Profile and Provision Mapping.
The SENCo/INCo can independently lead, write and implement:
Pre admission meetings are routinely held and transitions arrangements made.
Risk assessments.
Care plans.
Action planning and target setting.
PEEPS (Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan).
PEPs (Personal Education Plan for Children that are Looked After (CLA).
Seeking information and support from relevant agencies.
The SENCo/INCo writes, minutes and records reviews.
One page profiles.
Provision mapping.
The SENCo/INCo supports staff with identification of SEND and planning arrangements for individual children.
The SENCo/INCo organises identified training linked to specific needs and may use outside agencies independently for support and training.
The SENCo/INCo can plan and write effective high quality written reviews with appropriate evidence.
Setting staff work to support individual children’s needs to promote inclusion and independence.
All staff aware of the content of a child’s action plan and individual targets and how to support the child’s learning by making a variety of flexible arrangements across the provision.
The SENCo/INCo leads co-ordination of work for the child and supports the confidence of all staff in meeting the child’s needs.
Action planning and work on targets is consistently carried out and all outcomes recorded. The setting adjusts and adapts action planning and targets as needed.
Action plans and targets reflect the child’s strengths, motivations and interests and these are actively built on. Parents and children’s views taken into account.
Work on targets is of high quality and enables the child to make progress.
Children are successful and make progress according to their starting points, based on small stepped and personalised planning for the child’s individual needs and the graduated approach is embedded in practice.
Adjustments are made to both the environment and to activities throughout the setting to increase a child’s inclusion and independence.
Partnership with parents/families
The setting works to build a good relationship with all families and actively seeks information about individual children and their strengths/areas to develop.
- What evidence do you have of good partnerships with parents/carers? E.g. admission policy, key person system, settling-in procedures, ‘All About Me’ forms and One page profile
There are regular opportunities for discussion with parents regarding their child’s progress through a range of verbal / written/visual strategies.
- What evidence do you have? E.g. home/setting communication books, home observations, parent consultations, electronic learning journeys, texts/emails, Progress summaries, Progress Check at age two
The setting uses strategies to support the inclusion of all parents. For example, those with English as an additional language/literacy and other vulnerable groups.
- How do you support families and children with EAL and other vulnerable groups? E.g. evidence of key person systems, partnerships with parents, sharing of home languages and use of translators and interpreters.
- The setting has an open two way relationship with parents/carers.
Parents are fully included in the graduated approach. Reviews and meetings are parent centred and at times convenient to them.
- How do you ensure that meetings are parent centred and parents feel fully included and involved in action planning and target setting meetings/reviews?
- What evidence do you gather? E.g. documents signed by parents, agendas and minutes, SENCo/INCo file.
Voice of the child
The child’s voice is listened to and views taken into account. Page 8 of the SEND code of Practice, 2015. (1.1)
- How do you ensure that the child’s views are listened to and taken into account? E.g. observation, assessment and planning embedded into practice, displays, action plans and target setting, reviews, learning journeys, One page profile, on entry information.
The setting creates opportunities for the child to communicate.
- What systems do you have to ensure that the child’s voice is heard and acted upon?
- How do you ensure that children who are non verbal are listened to? E.g. observation, assessment and planning embedded into practice, displays, action plans, target setting and reviews?
-How is information regarding child’s interests, learning and development gathered on entry and throughout the process?
Planning includes a child’s needs and interests.
Share evidence and articulate personalised learning, opportunities for collaboration with parents.
Any other comments:
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