Supporting children under 5 through the Early Years Partnership in North Tyneside

North Tyneside Council identified a small number of children with unassessed needs or assessed needs that were unmet were entering reception year, with some who were unknown to services that could have supported them. At the same time, North Tyneside Council were also observing an increase in requests for Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments (EHCNA) and an increasing share of Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans amongst children under 5¹.

North Tyneside Council and the wider Local Area SEND Partnership recognised that they needed to strengthen the identification of children who have or may have SEND² and strengthen a coordinated pre-statutory support offer, bolstering staff confidence and expertise in supporting children with SEND. North Tyneside Council aligned services for children under 5 to form the Early Years Partnership.

The Early Years Partnership set out to achieve three aims:

1. Strengthen early pre-statutory support by identifying need earlier at pre-reception age and improving signposting to universal and targeted support.
2. Improve the experience for parents by simplifying the system, strengthening communication and collaboration, and improving parental understanding of how their children are being supported.
3. Improve experiences and longer-term outcomes for children with SEND within settings through building staff confidence and expertise.

The SEND Effective Practice Evidence Framework considers that the “strength of evidence” of this case study is emerging – the work has been evaluated and findings shared internally, there are plans to sustain the work of the Early Years Partnership in the local SEND system. The “breadth of impact” of this case study is promising – there is evidence of impact in terms of the lived experience of children with SEND and their families, and positive feedback from professionals. ³

[1] When referring to children under 5, North Tyneside Council are referring to children under 5 who are not in Reception year.

[2] For ease of reading, we use the term ‘SEND’ to refer to disabled children and children with special educational needs.

[3] The SEND Effective Practice Evidence Framework uses two “signal strength” indicators to present the strength of evidence and the breadth of impact of a case study. Each indicator has four bars – emerging, promising, good and robust. The “strength of evidence” indicator is based on how the project has been evaluated and the length of time it has been sustained. The “breadth of impact” indicator is based on whether the case study can demonstrate impact in four broad areas – the more areas of impact, the higher the signal strength indicator.