Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of support offered to early years professionals to improve early identification of SEND.

Effective early identification and intervention is critical to improving outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). In an inclusive system, early years settings should be confident in accurately identifying needs and meeting them through evidence-based interventions.

As part of our £200 million investment in SEND training across education we are investing in early years workforce development, including a new early years SEND continuous professional development programme, starting with online training programmes from September 2026 to support early years educators to develop the knowledge and skills needed to identify and effectively support children with SEND in their settings.

Clear statutory duties will require education settings to identify and meet needs as early as possible and to monitor progress to ensure timely intervention. To support this, the department is strengthening the evidence base on what works.

An independent expert panel is developing National Inclusion Standards which will provide clear practical guidance on the evidence-based approaches settings should use to identify and understand a child’s needs and put in place support. Alongside this, UK Research Innovation-led research and the 'What Works in SEND' programme are developing practical identification tools, for use across the 0-25 system.