Creating specialist places within mainstream schools is at the heart of the government’s drive to make the education system more inclusive for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

But there is concern that this focus on inclusion is insufficiently aligned with another government priority: early years education.

Early years has been a key education policy focus of the new government since taking office, and a goal has been set for 75 per cent of five-year-olds to be ready to learn when they start school.

Funding for 300 school-based nurseries has been announced and 30 hours of funded childcare is being rolled out later this year.

However, there are concerns that the need for specialist places within mainstream early years settings is being overlooked.

More EYFS pupils with complex needs

Resourced provision units within early years settings are commissioned and funded by local councils, but sector leaders want the government to take steps to ensure that every setting that wants to open up a unit can do so.

With increasing numbers of very young children with complex needs, including social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs, nursery heads are said to be now lobbying councils to fund more specialist units - or are left trying to run the provision without additional funding.

Luke Page, acting executive headteacher of Lambeth Nursery Schools’ Federation and Children’s Centres, which runs resourced provision units, said: ”Setting up these units has been a battle.

“In some cases, it has been the case that nursery schools with the capacity to do so have set up these units without the funding in place, and then said to councils, ‘This is what is needed - but if you want to it to continue, it will need to be funded.’”

He added: ”The challenge for many of us who have resource-based provision in early years is that we have had to do this ourselves.

“The maintained nursery schools across the country have worked together to share models and ideas, which has led to local authorities engaging in discussion and setting up new resource-based provisions. There are still many local authorities who are refusing to have this discussion.”

Shortage of places for pupils with SEND

Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of the Early Education charity, said around one in five maintained nursery schools have a provision in place, “but we think every maintained nursery school that can demonstrate the need should be able to readily open up this provision”.

She pointed to the shortage of places for children with SEND in the early years. A report by SEND charity Dingley’s Promise previously warned that one in five families of children with SEND reported being turned away by mainstream early years settings.

“Given the benefits of early intervention, I would definitely support the government looking at ways to increase inclusion in the early years, including specialist provision in maintained nursery schools and other suitable early years providers,” she said.

Mr Page added: “I do not understand the lack of discussion on a national level by government to reflect and create effective early intervention.

“Why would there not be a focus on ensuring children have access to effective intervention at the earliest opportunity? Why do there continue to be a significant number of children who are starting Reception without access to specialist SEND provision from birth?”

Increase in early years exclusions

The concerns come as headteachers are set to call on the government to ensure early years provision is adequately funded to meet the needs of children with SEND.

A motion being put forward at the NAHT school leaders’ union annual conference tomorrow warns that a “rise in dysregulated behaviour and lack of resources to effectively support children has resulted in an unwanted increase in suspensions and exclusions in the early years”.

It calls on the national executive to seek reassurance from the education secretary that SEND provision in early years is “adequately funded to ensure that children are able to learn in a safe and appropriate environment”.

Rob Williams, the NAHT’s senior policy adviser, said: “Providing easily accessed specialist input for pupils with SEND as early as possible must be the goal for this government.

“Developing more SEND expertise in early years settings, including specific resourced provision, could well reap many positive outcomes.

“However, to realise the full benefits for children, their families and the wider education system, such provision requires sufficient funding, well-trained staff and a coordinated multiagency approach that brings together education, health and social care.”

Funding for specialist places

The government has announced £740 million for the creation of new specialist places, and wants more of these to be based in mainstream schools.

This funding comes through the high needs provision capital grant, which can technically be used to pay for capital projects on SEND provision within early years.

However, an analysis of how this funding has been spent previously by local authorities shows only a tiny fraction of the places created are in standalone nursery provision or nurseries within primary schools.

Findings commissioned by Special Needs Jungle show that there were plans to create just under 22,000 new specialist places in spending returns between 2022 and 2024 across mainstream and specialist settings, of which only around 200 were in the early years.

More on SEND support:

• What we’ve learned from MPs’ inquiry into the SEND crisis
• How vulnerable pupils are losing their classrooms
• Most teachers have seen a drop in SEND support

Catherine McLeod, CEO of Dingley’s Promise, warned that creating specialist provision in early years has been an overlooked policy area until now.

She leads the largest specialist provider of nursery education to children under five with SEND in England, running nine centres.

“When it comes to creating units, specialist provision has never been properly considered in the early years,” she told Tes.

Ms McLeod said this was strange given the prominence of such provision in schools, and suggested that in the past, there have been concerns that specialist provision in early years works against ensuring inclusion in mainstream.

But she added: “I think people have to get their head around the idea that actually, if you get in early, you give the right intervention, you can actively move that child into the mainstream.”

SEND provision in nursery schools

The number of resourced provisions and SEN units within nursery schools has risen slowly for the past four years, public data shows, with 80 such units in nursery schools in the country, up from 71 four years ago.

These settings each cover a range of needs, with the most common being autism spectrum disorder (ASD), listed for 57 provisions, followed by speech, language and communication at 56.

Severe learning difficulties is listed at 41 provisions and moderate learning difficulties at 40.

Leaders of early years settings who run specialist provisions say the need for this approach is only increasing.

Mr Page helped launch his Lambeth-based group’s first provision eight years ago.

At the time, it was “unusual” to have nursery-aged resourced provisions for children aged 2-4, he said.

But, like many schools, the federation “had seen a significant increase in the number of children with complex additional needs, which included a significant number of children who became overwhelmed in our mainstream classrooms and environments”.

To meet this need, a small nurture space for four children was created and a proposal was put to the local council to commission places. With council support, it now runs provisions across three of its five nursery schools with 20 funded places, providing care and education to children in a “safe, nurturing and differentiated environment”.

In Lambeth, the needs are varied, but usually involve ASD and SEMH.

Around half of children “arrive at our schools with delayed language, many with significantly delayed communication skills”, Mr Page added. “Many of these children cannot manage in our mainstream classrooms and become dysregulated and overwhelmed.”

The approach allows the setting to move away from the standard one-to-one adult support some children are provided with elsewhere and can help ensure children move back into mainstream.

Co-occurring complex needs

Claire Ridgen, headteacher of St Paul’s Nursery School in York, which runs a resourced provision, points to an increase in the number of children arriving at nurseries with SEMH needs.

She explained: “We are seeing an increasing pattern of more complex children compared with six years ago, children appeared with communication and interaction difficulties, which they still do, but they are now often co-occurring with issues with dysregulation, feeding and social interaction.

“For us, often children are exhibiting very strong demand avoidant behaviours and families are clearly struggling with managing behaviour at home, particularly in non-verbal children.”

Nurseries lobbying for cash

This is why more private nurseries and state-funded maintained nursery schools are looking to set up provision or bases within their settings, Ms Ridgen added.

Lots of nurseries are bidding for local authorities’ local inclusion funding to take on more staff who can support children’s needs, she said.

“I’m in a local authority-maintained nursery school headteachers’ WhatsApp group, and lots of other nurseries across the country are lobbying their local authorities to fund specialist provision,” she said.

Ms Ridgen added that there was a head who was running a specialist provision within their nursery school without council backing.

She said establishing specialist units within early years helped to ensure more pupils with SEND could be supported in mainstream.

And added: “We have children who, without this support, would not have been able to move on to mainstream schools. We are able to support families and work with schools to show them the support these children have been receiving.”

Funding is biggest staffing challenge

Mr Page points out, though, that working in specialist units in early years can be physically and mentally exhausting.

Ms Rigden agrees, and said that “staff do have to be extremely resilient” as they are working with “very distressed children, unable to cope with their emotions”.

But, again, the biggest staffing challenge is funding.

Ms Merrick said that resourced provisions were more common in maintained nursery schools because there are typically larger providers and will have admissions policies that prioritise vulnerable children.

But she said that these settings still needed local authorities to proactively commission places on a rolling basis for the system to work and for settings to recruit or train specialist staff.

“Otherwise, settings are in the position of waiting to see what the profile of their children is, then applying for the money and waiting for it to come through - and in that situation, you can only ever offer staff shorter contracts,” she said.

A similar point was raised by Ms McLeod in relation to private and voluntary mainstream settings. She said that “the problem with the model is it’s not cheap”.

She added that this was why it was also important to ensure that mainstream nursery staff are fully trained on inclusion.

Call for more early years specialist settings

Dingley’s Promise runs nine specialist centres that receive council funding, but the charity believes there should be a specialist provision in every local authority area.

It also supports a forum of other specialist early years centres, which it warns can be dependent on external fundraising.

It wants specialist settings to be a core part of the early years system, with admissions decided in partnership with local authorities.

This would require core funding through the high needs block, which is not currently used to fund specialist early years centres.

Ms McLeod said the government should “clarify that specialist early years settings are an important part of building wider inclusion where they exist, and work in partnership with local authorities on allocating places to children”.

She said these centres can play a role to “support the children who are not able to access mainstream settings, with the aim of moving them back to mainstream once strategies are in place, families are confident and next settings are ready”.

Without this, “some children will continue to fall through the cracks, leading to negative impacts on life outcomes, families without faith in the system and higher long-term costs for the local authority”, she warned.

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.

For the latest education news and analysis delivered every weekday morning, sign up for the Tes Daily newsletter