Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – Inclusion Funding for Early Years
There are 2 different funding streams for SEND:
- Universal Inclusion Fund
- Individual Inclusion Fund
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What is the Universal Inclusion Fund?
An additional 10p per hour is paid for all hours claimed, for all ages, each term for the universal and working entitlements. This is added to the hourly base rate with universal deprivation funding. It is automatically calculated, based on your total termly hours claimed on your Headcount submission. Payments will be made with your normal Early Years Funding payments and can be viewed on your Financial Breakdown Report issued on the provider portal.
Universal Inclusion Funding is to support providers to have ordinarily available inclusive provision and practice and to make reasonable adjustments to enable children with low level SEND to access their early years entitlements.
It is essential to monitor children’s progress throughout the EYFS. Early years settings should adopt a graduated approach to meeting a child’s needs, as set out in the DfE SEND Code of Practice, 2014.
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What is Individual Inclusion Funding?
Individual Inclusion Funding (IIF) can be requested by providers to support the inclusion of children who have additional needs that are above and beyond those that can be met through the Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision (OAIP). The funding is a contribution to enable settings to provide enhanced provision and intervention that will impact on the children’s progress and outcomes. IIF is available to support eligible children of all ages who are in receipt of the Early Years Entitlement Funding (EYEF). There continues to be a finite amount of resources and therefore Devon are taking a pro-active approach to ensuring the funding that is available has the greatest impact on children’s outcomes and supports early identification and intervention.
We expect settings to be clear about how they plan to use the funding prior to making the application. Parents views should always be considered.
The funding can be used in a number of ways, for example staff training, additional resources and/or additional adult support (this does not mean full time one to one support).
Settings must ensure that that the funding is targeted to support the individual child to make progress
Termly panel meetings will consider requests for IIF and decide if funding should be awarded. There are 3 levels of funding that may be awarded as follows:
- Level 1: £1440 per year
- Level 2: £1800 per year
- Level 3: £2250 per year
These funding amounts are based on a child attending 15 hours per week / 570 hours per year. Therefore if the child attends for 30 hours the funding amount would be doubled or if the child attends less hours per week, funding will be reduced.
Due to the various models of funding available for children at settings and to ensure we fund children doing less weekly hours on a stretched offer, IIF will be calculated in line with their Early Years Funding entitlement and termly claims.
The examples below confirms how funding will be calculated:
- Level 1 funding (£1440 the year) / by 570 hours (universal entitlement) x termly funded hours claimed for Autumn term (14 weeks x 20 hours = 280 hours) = £707.37 for Autumn Term
- Level 1 funding (£1440 the year) / by 570 hours (universal entitlement) x termly funded hours claimed for Spring term (11 weeks x 20 hours = 220 hours) = £555.79 for Spring Term
Because the IIF is attached to the Early Years Entitlement Funding, payments will be made after the Headcount.
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What to include in applications
Applications need to include the following:
- A detailed description of the child’s needs and barriers to learning
- How the Graduated Approach has been followed and evidence of Assess, Plan, Do and Review
- Information about any referrals to other agencies
- How any advice given by other professionals has been implemented.
Evidence of need will be indicated through observations by staff in settings, by parents/carers and reports from appropriate professionals. Copies of reports from other professional need not be included with the application but available.
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How to make a request for support
Please use the Early Years Single Request for Support form. It allows you to request setting, group or individual support and funding.
The process will now move to a weekly triage process.
Forms submitted from Monday to Sunday each week will be reviewed at the Triage meeting the following Wednesday. You will be notified of the outcome within a maximum of 10 working days via email.
This request form is only for education services and is not a request for health, early help or social care support.
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New application deadlines
The process will now move to a weekly triage process. Forms submitted from Monday to Sunday each week will be reviewed at the Triage meeting the following Wednesday.
You will be notified of the outcome within a maximum of 10 working days via email.
This request form is only for education services and is not a request for health, early help or social care support.
- Local Offer website