Early Years SEND Support

Find out how children with learning and development delay or special educational needs and disability (SEND) are supported aged 0 to 5 years old. This includes what they receive before starting an early years setting and then once they begin their early education at a setting.

A multi-agency approach will be taken between education, health, care and other services to jointly support your child through their early years.

Some useful words and phrases to know

• Early Years – refers to all children from birth to five.
• Special Educational Needs and disability (SEND) – a child or young person has SEND if they have a learning difficulty and/or a disability meaning they require special health and education support.
• Learning and development delay - if there are concerns about a child’s learning and development in their early years, this is referred to ‘developmental delay’. It is too soon to use the term SEND.
• Early Years Provider or Setting– different terms are used to group together nurseries, preschools, childminders, nurseries in a school and nursery schools. All offer childcare for under-5s and have a statutory duty to provide early education following the Early years foundation stage statutory framework.