Start Well Early Years Foundation Stage Offer for Early Education and Childcare Settings

Bolton Start Well Service has small expert teams who provide comprehensive advice and support in the following areas:

• Early Years Foundation Stage – Start Well Quality and Outcomes Team
• Early Special Educational Needs and Disabilities – Start Well Early Years SEND Team
• Early Communication and Language – Start Well Early Years Communication and Language Development Service

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements visit

Purpose:

This visit will support leadership with an external review of safeguarding and welfare requirements good practice.

What happens on this visit?

The Start Well team work in partnership with the setting’s leadership team to review how EYFS Safeguarding and welfare requirements are met in the setting. A short note of visit will record agreed strengths and development points. The Safeguarding and welfare requirements visit can be pre-booked. Follow up personalised support can be provided if needed.

Outcomes of the safeguarding and welfare requirements visit:

• Supports strong leadership and management
• key priorities, actions required, success criteria and timescales clearly identified and addressed;
• supports more accurate self-evaluation; and
• supports leadership team to meet statutory EYFS requirements.

Personalised Support Visits

Purpose:

These visits are available for all providers and may have a focus that is very specific to the setting or linked to priorities in the neighbourhood. Providers can request additional support to focus on a specific area of EYFS practice or they may be contacted by the Start Well team. We also aim to support providers to embed Every Child training into practice.

What happens on these visits?

Visits will be agreed and organised to address the setting’s priorities. Examples of activities that may take place include a learning walk; focused discussion; co-delivery of a practitioner development session; leadership coaching; joint observations of practice, or any combination of these. The number of visits will vary according to need.

If appropriate, group consultancy will be organised where facilitated discussion and support will enable you to work  collaboratively to address your areas for development.

Activity will be recorded on a Note of Visit and other resources such as audit tools and templates may be provided.

Where providers have a ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ Ofsted inspection outcome or for more in-depth support, the manager will be offered support to develop and review an action plan to secure improvement.

Outcomes of personalised support visits:

• Every Child training is embedded;
• Supports leaders and managers to evaluate their provision and know how they can improve it or maintain its high standards;
• Key priorities, actions required, success criteria and timescales are clearly identified and addressed; and
• Working to improve outcomes for all children including the most vulnerable.

SEND Support Visits (application support / monitoring / Outreach SEND support)

Purpose:

These visits will support the setting SENCO to ensure that the SEND Code of Practice is followed and that all children’s needs are met.

What happens on these visits?

Start Well SEND visits have the following purposes:

1. The SEND Outreach Support Teacher will provide support and advice to the setting SENCO around Bolton processes, The SEND Code of Practice and offer signposting to other agencies as appropriate to meet the needs of individual children.
2. The SEND Manager will support providers to complete applications for Inclusion funding, including understanding of Early Help processes in Bolton; and
3. Inclusion fund monitoring visits from the SEND Manager will help the SENCO to track progress to intended outcomes.

Supporting Transition for children with SEND:

• Transitions can be a difficult time for children with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities. Moving up into a different room in nursery or on to school needs to be carefully planned for and managed to support the child’s individual needs.
• The setting will be supported to plan the transition for children with SEND, with opportunities for questions and discussions.

Outcomes of SEND support visits

• Improved use of Early Help process / pathways in Bolton;
• Supports practitioners to implement actions for individual children with SEND; and
• Improve outcomes for most vulnerable children.

Early Years Communication and Language Development Service

In September 2019, the Early Years Communication and Language Development Service will be relaunched at scale. This builds upon the work of the early adopter for the Greater Manchester Early Years Delivery Model, which will see the new integrated service made up of Education Specialists, Speech and Language Therapists and Speech and Language Therapy Assistants further develop and embed our Early Communication and Language Pathway in Bolton.

The service is a joint venture between Bolton Start Well Service and the new 0-19 Children and Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Service, commissioned by Bolton Council Public Health and Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group.

The service will continue to:

• deliver a range of professional development activities;
• support professionals in developing effective communication and language practice and provision;
• embed the use of communication and language assessment tools and interventions;
• deliver direct interventions across Bolton for children and their families to meet local needs;
• embed the role of Communication Champions across all services; and
• ensure smooth transition to more specialist speech and language services for children and their families.

Further information will be available through our briefings and on our website. For more information the Early Years Communication and Language Development Service can be contacted on 01204 338349.