The government’s SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper emphasises the importance of early identification.
The intentions are good: we need to ensure that children get the help they need as they move through school. But first, we need to tackle the problems with much current practice in assessing young children with special educational needs and disabilities.
For example, it is common to assess children using age-related assessment bands or other levels. The lower the level, the higher the funding. This leads to distinctly unhelpful practices.
I have seen 3-year-olds with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) assessed as “0-11 months” for communication. The children’s communication is nothing like a newborn baby’s. Strategies to encourage a baby with their babbling are unlikely to help a child with an ASC.
But what should we do instead?
We should begin with a clear principle: as Diane Rochford states in her review of assessment for children with SEND, “curriculum should drive assessment and not the other way round”.
To put that principle into action, we need to think carefully about our early years curriculum. Then, we must consider the support each child with SEND requires to access that curriculum and make progress towards key milestones.
Our assessment must check that this key learning is secure. That requires precision. Vague phrases like “not on track” or references to bands and levels won’t help. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) recommends a structured process of formative assessment, to identify:
- the child’s barriers to learning.
- the child’s interests and strengths.
- the support the child needs to access the curriculum.
- the improvements needed in the early years provision to support the child’s learning.
Formative assessment: how it should work in practice
What does this look like in practice? Let’s use 3-year-old Finn as an example.
At nursery, Finn finds it very difficult to settle in. After much patient support, he can tolerate his parents leaving, but seems withdrawn. He likes to wander outside, picking up sticks to hold in his hand. He avoids children and adults, and is unable to join the group at the end of nursery for songs and stories.
The nursery Sendco is aware that a 3-year-old’s development is variable, and that trauma or anxiety can lead to the sorts of difficulties Finn is having.
She does not jump to any conclusions but works with Finn’s parents and the speech and language therapist to begin the cycle of structured formative assessment and actions following the EEF’s guidance.
First, she looks at the barriers to learning: Finn is only interacting minimally with adults and children. He speaks very fast and often includes repeated phrases.
Then she reflects on his interests and strengths: he loves building with wooden blocks and Duplo bricks.
Taking these two points into consideration, she then thinks about the support Finn needs to access the curriculum: he needs help to communicate that he wants to play alongside other children, and also needs support to develop his attention.
The Sendco and speech therapist use visual supports so he can point to different symbols and indicate what he wants to do. They also involve Finn in a short intervention during group time, to help him develop his attention and, in time, join in with story and song times.
There are also improvements to be made in the provision that can support Finn’s learning: for example, the construction area is crowded and this makes Finn feel stressed.
The Sendco, therefore, works with the nursery team to make it bigger. Some of the construction toys are taken out and more Duplo is provided. This means Finn has enough bricks to make his constructions alongside other children. The nursery team teaches all the children to use the visual supports, so that all the children can communicate with each other.
Throughout this process, the Sendco does not use age-related assessments to suggest that Finn communicates like a baby. This is because Finn doesn’t communicate like a baby, and the strategies to encourage a baby’s development would not be appropriate for him.
Instead, focuses on his strengths and the barriers to his learning. She does not waste the precious resource of a learning support assistant (LSA) to follow Finn around and give him one-to-one support as he wanders about.
The LSA supports Finn to access the mainstream curriculum, and gradually withdraws support as he gets more confident in different areas of the room.
The LSA also focuses on helping him to develop the skills he needs to communicate with other children and to manage the play-based curriculum.
Finn’s story is an example of how we should be assessing children with SEND in EYFS.
If one of the aims of the nursery curriculum is that children can make choices and carry those out independently, we can gauge Finn’s progress towards an endpoint that is the same for all the children. We need to check that regularly, with the involvement of Finn and his parents. We can help Finn to tell us how he is feeling, for example, by pointing to a range of emotion symbols.
Decisions on extra support and funding are better when they are based on this kind of precise assessment of the child’s barriers to learning. We need to ask questions like: what extra support do they need to access the curriculum? And how much will other necessary changes to the whole provision cost?
It is sobering to note that children with SEND are 10-15 months behind other children by the end of the EYFS. That’s why we need change.
Dr Julian Grenier is the headteacher of Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre. He co-leads the East London Research School
