Early identification and notification for pre-school children under 5
All children are individuals and you and your child may have already seen many people from different health services, such as:
- GPs
- hospital doctors
- health visitors
- paediatricians
- speech and language therapists.
Your health professional might advise you that your child could benefit from additional support when they start in an early years setting.
If your child’s health needs could impact on them being able to access mainstream education without additional support, your health professional will need to inform us of this so that we can get the right support set up for your child.
Early information about your child helps us to plan ahead to meet their needs. This is called ‘early identification and notification’.
In accordance with Section 3 of the Children and Families 2014 Act, health staff have a duty to notify us of any child under compulsory school age who they think may have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) in order for the children to be supported appropriately.
Who can send a notification
All health professionals can send a notification, this may be a:
- health visitor
- audiologist
- ophthalmologist
- Children’s Community Nursing Team
- consultant
- therapist (speech therapist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist)
- local paediatricians.
A health professional must inform you if they believe your child may have or is likely to have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
They'll ask you to give your consent to them sharing this information with us.
You have a right to withhold consent to the sharing of your child’s information.
If you change your mind, consent can be given at any time whilst your child is under the age of 5.
Health professionals can complete the following form to let us know of preschool children who have or are likely to have a special educational need and/or disability.
Download the early identification and notification form.
Completing this form helps us, health services and commissioners, understand the future needs of children and young people with SEND, and plan the right provision.
It also helps us predict the future number of places needed in our special needs schools and build specialist capacity within mainstream schools.