Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Early Language and Support for Every Child pathfinders in partnership are effectively (a) reaching and (b) engaging (i) neurodivergent children and (ii) their families; and what steps she is taking to evaluate the effectiveness of the trials.

As part of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme, the Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) pilots are testing innovative workforce models. The pilots aim to improve identification and support for children with speech, language and communication needs in early years and primary schools. ELSEC is not designed to identify neurodivergent children, although some of the speech, language and communication needs being addressed are likely to be associated with neurodivergence.

Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) is a jointly funded programme between NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. It will deploy specialists from both health and education workforces to upskill mainstream primary schools and build their capacity to identify and meet the needs of children with neurodivergent needs. Adopting a whole-school approach, PINS is needs rather than diagnosis-led, and will include children without a formal diagnosis. Individual assessment or intervention or specific diagnostic tools are therefore not part of the programme.

Both programmes aim to intervene at an early stage in the child's education journey. Both will be formally evaluated to provide quantitative and qualitative information on impact. Learning from the programmes will be used to inform future policy development on how services and schools can support children with speech, language and communication needs or who are neurodiverse.