Early Years one to one funding question, is this legal?

[Ineedmorepatience]

Does anyone know of any reason why an early years child who is entitled to 3 yr old, 15 hrs funding could be refused more than 10 hours of one to one funding?

I have reason to believe I am being fed B......t and that what I have been told is a blanket policy which I believe may be unlawful.

The child concerned has multiple Dx's including ASD, SPD and Severe language disorder?? She is well known to early years and her needs cannot be met without one to one!

I am not sure if I have got the right understanding of your question, but the 15hrs free for 3 year olds will be treated separately than the time allocated for a one to one. So they won't necessarily 'match' as such. However I don't know of a blanket 'no more than 10 hrs one to one support' policy and I would think it would be unlawful as it wouldn't be based on need.

If it helps, my 3 yr old SN DD attends her 15 hrs free and has a one to one for all of that time. However that was only once we had a statement in place. Previous to that our local authority only awarded her 80 per cent funding of a one to one (which was laughable -there is no part of her time there she can do alone- but that was what they 'commonly awarded' apparently). So the pre-school had to cover the missing 20 per cent of funding. Not good. For us it was only when we got her a statement did we get the full 100 per cent support.

Thanks moomummy yes I did know that the funding is separate but you have answered my question, thankyou

My guess is that the LA will tell us we have to find the other 5 hours out of the preschool budget [I am the senco].

I think it is probably unlawful too, as you say it cannot be based on need and if we dont "Allow" the child to attend due to not being able to meet her needs then that is discrimination!!

Rock and a hard place. I am waiting to here from the LA, they are having one of their relentless meetings!!

Thanks again

Anyone else any experience with this?

Our LA had a similar policy when DS was diagnosed. It was based on whether a child was 50 or 75% delayed in so many areas of development. The LA then funded 50 or 75% of the 15 hours as 1:1. It never funded 100%.
You should FOI them for their policy.
To get 100% 1:1 we had to get a statement.
Under (another unlawful unwritten blanket policy) it was impossible to get a statutory assessment for a child under 5 until you had been on the 50 or 75% funding for 6-12 months.
We were one of the few families to challenge this by applying immediately for a statutory assessment - appealing the inevitable refusal (which they were later forced to admit was prejudged without looking at the evidence), the LA then backed down and we eventually got 100% 1:1 in a statement 10 months after we first applied for the early years funding.
So you can challenge this but expect the LA to drag it out and quote the graduated approach.
However the graduated approach was never intended to leave children with obvious needs unsupported! There are exceptions to the graduated approach in SENCOP which you can quote.
Safety reasons is the key way of getting 100% 1:1. Would your setting refuse the child on safety grounds? I don't think that would be discrimination you say yes the child can attend but only with FT 1:1. You can do a risk assessment to support this.
I know a child who escaped into a nursery carpark and the nursery then refused to have the child present during any hours 1:1 was not funded. the setting has far more clout than the parent. If the setting puts in writing FT 1:1 is needed and the child cannot attend on safety grounds without 1:1 and gives the parent a copy of that letter the parent can then share it with any other setting the LA tries to get to take the child (which they will).
The LA also has duties under Equality Act and Childcare Act to let parents work etc so it is for the LA to meet its equality duty too.

Yes. My LA had a policy of only funding 80% of provision. EY setting refused to top up.

It got rather messy when I insisted I would only then enrol ds for 80% of the time then, because then they would only fund 80% of 80%.

In the end the EY setting gave in, but that was of course because they wanted an extra member of staff for 20% of what she cost and had not intention of using her as 1:1 to my ds.

Thanks both agnes I will think carefully about the safety aspect but may not be able to build a strong enough case on that alone.

At the moment she is only doing 10 hours even though she qualified for 2yr old funding, which is 15 hours but her parents [rightly] want her to be able to take up her full 15 hours in Jan.

Star luckily the manager and senco[me] in the setting are passionate about supporting our children with special needs and would never short change them in terms of their support.
I am sorry that you experienced a setting that would be ok with that

The setting was okay. They were just too ignorant to understand that ds needed full-time 1:1 and thought that the funding had only come about by dubious means (to be fair it had - ds was doing an ABA programme, we'd applied for SA ourselves and insisted he would only attend EY the hours he has support, the LA needed to ensure we took up as much as possible as they needed to 'prove' that ABA wasn't responsible for his progress).

Bloody mess.....

But dont you think that ignorance is the biggest problem?? The people holding the purse strings are clueless about individual children and how best to meet their needs.

I keep inviting them to come and see with their own eyes how much this LO needs our support but as yet they sent a monkey not the organ grinder !!

Sometimes you need to flip it around. DS was very passive and would sit happily on his own when he didn't have 1:1. The LA rolled out the old 'independence' argument saying he needed time without 1:1 to be independent. But we showed he wasn't being independent in those times - or at least not in a way that accessed learning. He was isolating and tuning out and it was harder to get him back once he'd had time on his own. If thats the situation then you have to say when x does not have 1:1 they are not learning or engaging with anything. How much time per week are you saying it is acceptable for this child to be in my setting and unable to access learning? When we said it like this even the autism outreach teacher who was absolutely horrible to us accepted sometimes very passive children did need FT 1:1 or they would just sit and do nothing. Its a fairly easy argument to win at tribunal.

The parents should apply for a statement. We showed at tribunal DS did not need 15 hours but 35 hours education. 15 hours is just what every child gets under the free nursery scheme, nothing to do with SEN. The LA duty is to provide an education that meets the child's age, aptitude and SEN. Obviously magically and without any thought the LA always decides that should be 15, but actually the requirement is for them to consider how much education a child needs and for one with SEN / delays that could (should) be MORE than other children the same age. In USA the recommendation for early intervention is 25 hours a week.

Its about an education that meets the SEN not fitting the child to the existing education system. Tribunals get this.