Early years childcare provision for children with special educational needs
Case reference FOI2024/00907
Received 21 May 2024
Published 12 June 2024
Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information, regarding local childcare availability in your local authority:
- The number of childcare places available for children aged 0-5 with special educational needs or disabilities in each of the last five years;
- The number of children aged 0-5 with an EHC plan or an application for an EHC plan in each of the last five years.
Response
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request the following information, regarding local childcare availability in your local authority:
- The number of childcare places available for children aged 0-5 with special educational needs or disabilities in each of the last five years;
Mainstream schools and settings are required to adapt their practice and provide targeted support so that children and young people with SEND can achieve their potential. A wide variety of mainstream settings, including PVI establishments, within Herefordshire would have capacity to accommodate SEND children aged 0-5 and the nature of a placement would depend on a range of factors, including the specific needs of individual children and whether the provision at a particular setting was appropriate for those needs. However, these mainstream settings would not have specifically designated places for children with SEND.
Some children and young people require more specialist help and support and may require an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) in order to access a mainstream setting. For a small number of children, a mainstream setting might not be the most appropriate placement to meet their special educational needs and a specialist placement will be required.
The local authority has two specialist settings which accommodate children from 2 years of age. Blackmarston School (ages 2-11) has an overall school capacity of 99 pupil places and Westfield School (ages 2-19) has an overall school capacity of 73 pupil places. These places are not ring-fenced to a particular age group. In addition, the local authority also has three specialist resource bases for autism for primary school age children and a language and communication centre. Hampton Dene Primary School, has 40 places in its language and communication centre resourced provision and 15 places in its SEND assessment unit. Leominster Primary School has 8 pupil places in its ASD resourced provision and St Weonards Primary School has 9 places in its ASD resourced provision.
- The number of children aged 0-5 with an EHC plan or an application for an EHC plan in each of the last five years.
Please see the attached spreadsheet.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.