Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure that children with emerging special educational needs and disabilities aged between nine months and two years who will be eligible for 15 hours funded childcare from September 2024 receive support for their additional needs in early years settings.

In the Spring Budget on 15 March 2023, the government announced the expansion of the free childcare entitlements offer so that eligible working parents in England will be able to access 30 free hours of childcare per week, over 38 weeks of the year, from the term after their child turns 9 months old to when they start school. The expanded working parent entitlement (which will be rolled out in phases from April 2024) will be available to working parents who meet the eligibility criteria. A link to the eligibility criteria is available here: https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working?step-by-step-nav=f517cd57-3c18-4bb9-aa8b-1b907e279bf9. These are the same as the current 30 hours offer for 3 and 4-year-olds.

As with the current 30 hours offer for 3- and 4-year-olds, children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) will be eligible for the expanded offer as long as their parent(s) meet the eligibility criteria. Further information can be found at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity for all children. The sufficiency of childcare places will also be continuously monitored.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework states that all early years providers, including those registered with an early years childminder agency, must have arrangements in place to support children with SEND. Early intervention can allow children to thrive, and the department is committed to ensuring the right support can be put in place as soon as it is needed. The department understands the importance of having qualified, trained and experienced people working with children in early years with SEND and emerging Special Educational Needs (SEN). Level 2 and early years educator level 3 qualifications include SEND content, and the department’s is funding training for up to 7,000 early years SEN Coordinators.

The SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published on 2 March 2023 in response to the SEND and AP green paper of March 2022, sets out how an effective single national SEND and AP system will be delivered. Many of the proposals in the improvement plan will have an impact on early years education, including new national standards for identifying and meeting SEND. These new standards aim to make consistent the provision that should be made available across the country for every child and young person with SEND. There will also be new local SEND and AP partnerships, strengthened accountability and dashboards, and funding reforms. The department has already committed to work with local authorities, early years providers and stakeholders to consider whether changes to the SEN Improvement Funds and other associated elements of the wider current early years funding system are needed, to ensure early years SEND funding arrangements are appropriate and well-targeted to both improve outcomes for all pre-school children with SEND, and to support the introduction of a national framework for bands and tariffs. These vital changes are aimed at enabling early years settings to accept children with SEND into their settings, and provide them with the support they need to learn and grow.