Early Years
I am Pam Holden, the Sevenoaks Specialist Teacher for Early Years (EY) based at Valence School. Together with Claire Woolmer from Milestone Academy, we support pre-schools, nurseries and early years provision within schools in the Sevenoaks District.
Early Years supports children presenting with needs in the following areas; Cognition and Learning (C&L), Communication and Interaction (C&I), Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) and Physical Disability (PD) in pre-schools, nurseries and within early years provision with schools.
The main roles of the Sevenoaks Early Years Specialist Teacher are:
- Co-ordinating the Early Years work, including that of the outreach team
- Leading Early Years LIFT meetings, also attending some School Age LIFT meetings
- Providing guidance, support an advice to staff whilst working with parents to establish and adapt provision to meet the needs of children who require a personalised level of support. This includes observing and working with the children, jointly writing personalised plans/provision plans and agreeing accessing further pathways of support as appropriate, e.g. SENIF, SENIF Practitioner Support, Specialist Intervention, EHCP applications and planning for a thorough individualised transition into school.
- Writing and delivering core and bespoke SEN training and SENCO Forum events for Early Years staff including Reception Age SEN drop-in advice sessions
- Liaising and working with professionals from multi-agencies, e.g. speech and language therapist, occupational therapists, children’s care co-ordinators, educational psychologists etc.
- Organising and running the Sevenoaks Early Years Transition Event and supporting the Swanley Early Years Transition event
