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

Universal Inclusion Fund?

An additional 4p per hour is being paid for all hours claimed for three- and four-year old funding each term, for the universal and extended entitlement.
This will be 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.
What is Individual Inclusion Funding?
Individual Inclusion Funding is available to providers to support the inclusion of children who are at SEN Support. The aim is to support settings to provide enhanced provision and intervention that will impact on the children’s progress and outcomes. 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.

There has sometimes been an expectation that ‘support’ in SEN Support will be in the form of additional staff to provide one to one support for a child. In fact this may not be the most appropriate way to help a child or groups of children to make progress and the ‘support’ may take the form of training, physical or sensory adaptations, small group or targeted interventions, or additional adult time to enable the child to learn.

SEN Support Funding is available to support children in receipt of the Early Years Entitlement Funding. All children who are attending a setting from the term following their 3rd birthday for up to 15 hours who meet the criteria, will be eligible for a percentage of their time to be supported. Children who are in receipt of the 2 year old funding from the term after their 2nd birthday for up to 15 hours who meet the criteria, will be eligible for a percentage of their funded time to be supported.

It is essential to monitor children’s progress throughout the Foundation Stage. 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.

To assist settings in considering ways to improve outcomes for children with additional needs it is possible to make an application for funding to provide support through the setting or to support an individual child. This is now known as Individual Inclusion Funding (previously known as EY SEN Support or Early Years Action Plus Funding or EYAPF).

These are the children who you should be requesting Individual Inclusion Funding for:
- Complex needs
- Emergency funding application
- Medical need that impacts on child’s learning and development
- Child is identified at SEN SUPPORT
- Where children are being supported by the Early Years Complex Needs Team
- Settings can use individual application if child is known to one or more external agencies and there is a need for specific individual input.
- Settings can use individual application to support emergency funding application or to manage complex medical needs following a discussion with/visit from EYC.
Termly panel meetings will review applications of children with High Level Needs and discuss if funding will 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, individual SEND funding 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 Individual Inclusion Funding is attached to the Early Years Entitlement Funding, payments will be made after the Headcount.
What to include in applications
Applications need to include the following:
- A detailed description of the child’s needs
- How the Graduated Response 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 should not be included with the application but available if requested by the Panel or the Early Years Consultant.

The termly review for measuring impact should include:
- How the funding is being used
- Evidence of the child’s progress since receiving the inclusion funding
- Parent’s view of their child’s progress since receiving the funding
- How the setting plans to use any future funding.
Termly reviews should be kept by the setting until requested by Devon County Council for monitoring purposes. They should also be submitted if the setting wishes for the level of funding awarded to be reviewed.
Application Deadlines
Applications for support must be received by the following dates:
- 31st October for funding to commence 1st January – SEND applications for spring 2025 can be submitted between 1st September & 31st October 2024 for the panel meeting in early November 2024. Any applications received after the 31st October deadline will be put forward for consideration for SEND spring funding at the additional panel meeting in January 2025.
- 28th February for funding to commence 1st April
  31st May for funding to commence 1st September
Applications will be decided at Panel meetings.
How to Apply
The Application/Review Form for Early Years Individual Inclusion Funding has been updated.

Old forms/paperwork should not be used for future applications or reviews.

Please use the links below to submit your application:
SEND applications for spring 2025 can be submitted between 1st September & 31st October 2024 for the panel meeting in early November 2024. Any applications received after the 31st October deadline will be put forward for consideration for SEND spring funding at the additional panel meeting in January 2025.
Local Offer

SEND Local Offer