This is Part 2 of our blog dyad, following ‘Never too young…‘

Young children have their say

Organisations often struggle to ensure young children’s voices are fully prioritised in education planning. Whether for a personal education plan or education, health and care (EHCP) processes, Express helps considerably to ensure young children are able to have their say and bring their perspective to the planning.

Tia and her Year 1 teacher

I sat with five year old Tia and her Year 1 Teacher, who is also the SENCO; we used Express ‘All about Me’ and ‘My Education’ so she could give her views for the application for an EHCP. Tia loved it! She loved pointing to the pictures and clicking on the options and read all the simple words really well. It gave us insight into her thoughts and views and allowed us to ask extra questions.

This was her teacher’s first experience of Express:

This is fantastic! It has really helped us – school have the PDF and it will also be passed onto the Educational Psychologist and Complex Needs team for information.

Great expectations

Recently I was speaking to a local authority service manager for assessment teams who told me her organisation was really struggling to ensure the views of younger children were properly present in court processes. The organisation was just starting to use our apps with the expectation that this would change outcomes for children and enhance the quality of the social work assessments and plans that were presented before the court.

We have some great examples of brilliant practice in ensuring very young children’s views are being captured. Ola describes here how she used Express to carry out a child protection assessment with a family that included a curious two-year old.

Jill Thorburn