EYFS - Emerging 30-50 at 51 months - and starting reception

[Mummy0ftwo12]

Hello, worried about my ds who is 51 months and about to start reception, he has a speech and language delay and nursery assess him as being EYFS - Emerging 30-50 at 51 months in most areas. Any advice welcome - obviously school are aware and have observed him but they haven't really said anything other than they are happy for him to start.

My 4 year old DD has just started reception. She has a moderate-severe speech disorder and v.v.hard to understand. She has just finished her second full week and in the laat few days her plan has been set up. She will be having blocks of speech therapy with her NHS speech therapist every 2-3 months, she will be having one-to-one therapy with the school's private speech therapist and she has been allocated a TA who is working with her exercises/tasks every day for 10 minutes a day.

I would be looking at what the school will be doing to support your child? A speech delay/disorder should not be a barrier but they need to provide additional support. You may find they spend a week or so assessing where he is at and then putting a plan in place.

Don't be afraid to ask questions/push for support.

And if he has NHS salt then make sure school are up to date on latest reports etc.

As an early years practitioner, I always struggle to assess children who have speech delays. Most parts of the EYFS state 'know this' or 'say that' and if a child struggles to talk due to speech or language issues then it's hard to pin point what they actually do know. If they are happy for him to start then ask for them to assess him and start putting a plan in place to enable him to develop

thanks both, speech therapist goes into nursery every month for an hours session and he gets daily 1-1 sessions to practise the targets she sets - so its making sure something similar is in place? school have looked at what nursery do and the additional aids they use but they haven't said what they plan to do.

We have several children who join us each year with SALT involvement, the support and 1;1 sessions continue as they have done in nursery. Have you spoken to the SENCO at the school?

Yes - but not about the specifics of what they will be doing. So probably i need to talk to the school about that.

@Mummy0ftwo12 my ds has autism / learning difficulties / speech delay / disorder, he has a full time 1-1 at school and an ehcp etc. (He doesn't receive salt at all though!)

He started school last September age 4 yr 8 months with the development age of 16-26m across the board.

He's now a mix bag of developing 30-50, some 40-60 emerging, with some areas (numbers and reading in particular) being nearly onto early learning goals. This is 13 months after getting 16-26m across the board.

He's nearly 6, so still obviously delayed but he does have quite obvious SN.

What I'm trying to say is, ds with his diagnosis has made a lot of progress since starting school, better than anyone expected to be honest. He can write his name, a few words, read some level 1 books. Last year he couldn't even hold a pencil!

School will do some initial assesments and give the support your dc requires, also I find school very different to nursery in terms of learning.

Ds just played all day at nursery, where as at school, he learns through play, but also does 'jobs' (that's what they call his work)