Back in June, we shared with you the final draft of Manchester’s Ordinarily Available Provision for Early Years document, which describes the support, strategies and activities that are available in early years settings to young children with additional needs, regardless of formal diagnosis or specialist support.

Below is a message from Nuala Finegan, Manchester City Council’s Senior Quality Assurance Officer for Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND):

Manchester was lucky enough to be invited to the Council for Disabled Children’s national event on Tuesday, 20th October, to talk about the Early Years Ordinarily Available Provision Guidance document. A few of the original working group were able to join me to deliver the presentation: Lesley Rudge from Early Years Quality Assurance (EQA), Donna Griffin from the Rodney House Outreach Service for Early Years (RHOSEY) and your very own Jordan Navarro, Manchester Parent Carer Forum. Thanks also to Sue Churchill and Julie Hicklin who worked on the presentation but weren’t able to present.

The guidance has been available since June this year and it is time for the first review. It was hoped that this document would support more children with additional needs to have places in early years settings and nurseries, and the early years staff to have more confidence to support them. Now we need you to let us know whether this has happened: what is your experience – has the document helped you to place your child in an early years setting? have staff mentioned the document? have the strategies and resources helped you and/or staff to support your child?

We are continuing to work on the guidance with a new Action Learning Set focusing on transition. If you are interested in being part of this working group, please let me know. We haven’t started yet and it looks as though all the meetings will be virtual which hopefully will make it easier for you to attend.

Thank you for your invaluable input to get this work off the ground, and we look forward to working with you on the next phase.

Please do message us if you have any feedback about the Ordinarily Available Provision document, if you have any stories about how it has helped you or your child’s school, or if you want to get involved in future discussions.

You can download the document here or from the Local Offer, or view it using our reader below.

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