Special Education Needs (SEN) Early Years Service

The Isle of Wight Council is committed to ensuring all children and young people receive high quality education. This enables them to make progress and achieve. For children and young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs or a disability, additional or specialist support may be needed to enable this. 

The Early Years providers on the Island will have information which includes their arrangements for children with Special Educational Needs. This information can be found in the 'Childminder' and 'Preschool and nurseries' section.   

Early Years SEN Hub 

There is an Early Years SEN Hub at Clever Cloggs Nursery in Newport which contains specialist resourced provision for pupils with Special Education Needs (SEN). This centre will allow pupils with specific types of SEN to be supported in an Early Years setting. It will provide the best start in their education, allowing high quality provision to be made to meet young children's needs. The emphasis is on providing an inclusive model of inclusion within and Early Years setting and allow access to the curriculum as far as possible, with additional support provided when appropriate mostly in the mainstream setting, although some individual small group work can be provided where necessary. The resource provision will ensure access to a broad and balanced curriculum.  

The team support the inclusion of early years children with additional needs in to early years education provider setting. The Early Years SEN Advisory team work in partnership with parents and pre-school teams building on their existing knowledge and offering training, strategies, resources and advice to empower them. The team can also work in partnership with other agencies.   

Early Support Team – Portage Outreach 

Outreach is a service that is offered by Portage/Early Support Team to all early years’ settings for any child whose development causes significant concern. 

The outreach worker can: 

• Work with settings to offer support and guidance to meet the individual child’s needs. 

• Meet with setting staff and parents/carers to ensure consistency of support for the child. 

• Liaise with other professionals to help settings meet the needs of the child. 

• To be available to support the setting in planning school transition. 

Experienced, qualified and trained staff offer children and their families support in the home, in childcare settings and while transferring into school. We offer assessment, information, structured programmes, training and resources to ensure that each child receives experiences within an environment especially tailored to meet their needs.