Our purpose for all children is: Together with families and communities, we enable each child to be the best they can be through wonderful experiences that enrich and extend their learning.

Children with SEND deserve to have those same wonderful experiences, which is why we have a clear SEND strategy, underpinned by the principles of early identification of need, early intervention, personalisation and inclusion.

Our SEND strategy

We have a clear SEND strategy, which is understood by all staff.

Our vision for children with SEND at LEYF is that they fulfil their ambitions in a safe and protected environment, while developing their independence and taking informed risks.

We aim to ensure every child with SEND has fun and has their voice heard, because we recognise them as equals.

We provide high quality education and care to achieve better outcomes for children with SEND.

  • We continually develop and support our teachers in assessing and identifying children with potential SEND
  • We support teachers to become confident in planning relevant interventions to meet children’s individual needs
  • We support teachers to become confident in carrying out referrals and accessing local outreach services for specialist advice

Staff and children playing with water outside in the garden

  • We work professionally with individual children and in collaboration with families, to ensure they have fair and equal access to support services and local agencies, to get the early help and targeted and specialist support they need
  • We use a range of different tools to assess children’s progress, such as, Early Years Development Journal, Early Years Speech, Language and Communication Monitoring Tool and, most importantly, the LEYF LPDS

Teacher and children making art from food

  • We support teachers to become confident in signposting parents and carers to relevant support services, to support individual children’s and families’ needs, such as adult mental health services
  • We continuously support SENDCOs to become skilled and confident in searching and understanding the local SEND services and processes, known as Local Offer
  • We support teachers to move away from a belief that supporting the needs of children with SEND requires an expert or specialist intervention into something that is part of mainstream, good quality teaching
  • We have a training programme to ensure we provide high quality provision to meet the needs of children with SEND

children and staff playing in the home corner, pretending to cook and bake

Find out more

For more information on SEND provision, have a look at the Government website.

Each London Borough provides a Local Offer, which shows what’s available in the borough for children, young people and adults (aged 0–25) who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. It includes up-to-date information on opportunities and services that are available to you. For details by borough, please see the links below and choose the relevant link for your area.

Staff and children learning how to count

Funded places

As a registered charity and social enterprise, we offer high quality childcare at the most competitive and affordable rates.

Staff and children looking at their nursery pet turtle

Inclusion

We deliver the very best level of care to each and every child, no matter their individual circumstances.

Staff using makaton/sign language with toddler in the home corner

SEND training

Find out more about our SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) training and courses.