Early Years Action

Written by Sarah-Jayne Bass

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Early Years Action is designed to identify pre-school children who may have special educational needs.

Early Years Action happens if the child's rate of progress is well below what is expected for children of a similar age and it becomes necessary to take some action which is additional to or different from that usually used.

The triggers for Early Years Action are when a child:

makes little or no progress even when different teaching approaches have been tried
continues working in certain areas at levels well below that expected of children of a similar age
has emotional and/or behavioural difficulties which are not helped by the behaviour management usually used in the pre-school setting
has sensory (hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch) or physical problems which do not improve even with the help of specialist equipment
has difficulty communicating and/or socialising and needs special individual help in order to learn.

The Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) and other staff should collect information about the child and ask for any further information from the parents. Outside professionals from health, social services or the educational psychology service may already be involved with the child.

Nature of Support

This could be:

individually or with a group of children
extra adult time to plan and monitor the support
occasional advice from Local Education Authority (LEA) support services.
training for staff in useful strategies

Parents should always be consulted and kept informed about the actions taken to help their child and the result of the actions.

The numbers in brackets relate to the section and paragraph number of the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice which can be obtained, free of charge from: DfES Publications, P O Box 5050, Sherwood Park, Annesley, Nottinghamshire NG15 0DJ. Tel: 0845 60 222 60, Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Early Years Action Plus

Early Education Action Plus happens when, after talking with parents at the meeting where the Individual Education Plan (IEP) is looked at again, a decision is made to ask for help from outside agencies. When Early Years Action Plus takes place, advice should always be asked of specialists.

The triggers for Early Years Action Plus are when a child, despite receiving support under Early Years Action:

continues to make little or no progress in certain areas over a long period
continues working at Early Years Curriculum levels well below that expected of children of a similar age
has emotional or behavioural difficulties which regularly interfere with their own, or others education even though they have an individual behaviour programme
has sensory (hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch) or physical needs and additional equipment or regular advice/visits are needed by a specialist service
has ongoing communication or social difficulties that stop the development of social relationships and makes learning very difficult.

When a pre-school setting asks for outside help, those services will need to see the child's records to know which plans have been made and which goals have been set and reached.

Outside agencies (Local Education Authority and others) will usually see a child in their place of education so that they can advise on new and correct goals for the child's IEP and all plans which go with it.