Special Educational Needs in the Early Primary Years: Primary School Entry up to the End of Year 1: EYTSEN Technical Paper 2(EPPE)

The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) research builds on the work of the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) project, a major longitudinal study of a national sample of young children’s progress and development through pre-school and into primary school until the end of Key Stage 1. The EYTSEN study focuses on special educational needs (SEN), and explores evidence of possible SEN amongst pre-school children and follows their progress from entry to the study up to the end of Year 1. It uses a range of information to identify children who may be ‘at risk’ in terms of either cognitive or social/behavioural development and investigates links with a variety of child, parent and family characteristics, including multiple disadvantage and the home learning environment. It also explores the identification of SEN amongst the sample at school and parents’ perceptions of whether their child has SEN and what provision their child received. The findings suggest that both the quality and effectiveness of the pre-school setting attended continues to have an impact on young children’s subsequent cognitive progress during their first years in primary school.

Table of Contents:
Executive Summary SECTION 1A: The characteristics of children identified as ‘at risk’ at the end of Year 1 in primary school: Characteristics of children identified as ‘at risk’ on Cognitive assessments at the end of Year 1 Identifying ‘at risk’ children on cognitive measures Home background characteristics of children ‘at risk’ on cognitive measures Home environment characteristics of children ‘at risk’ on cognitive measures Multiple disadvantage and cognitive ‘at risk’ status at the end of Year 1 Characteristics of children identified as ‘at risk’ on social/behavioural assessments at the end of Year 1 Identifying children ‘at risk’ on social/behavioural measures Comparisons with national norms Relationships between different social/behavioural ‘at risk’ classifications at the end of Year 1 Home background characteristics of children identified as ‘at risk’ on social/behavioural measures Home environment characteristics of children ‘at risk’ status at the end of Year 1 Relationships between cognitive and social/behavioural ‘at risk’ status at the end of Year 1 SECTION 1B: Patterns of progress and changes in young children’s cognitive and social/behavioural development across the pre-school period up to the end of Year 1 Movement in ‘risk’ status across three time points: entry to pre-school, entry to primary school and the end of Year 1 Multiple disadvantage and movement in ‘risk’ status across three time points Type of pre-school provision and change in ‘risk’ status over three time points SECTION 1C: Assessing the performance of children with no pre-school experience Comparisons of children with and without pre-school experience at entry to primary school Multiple disadvantage and ‘at risk’ status for children without pre-school experience Comparisons of children with and without pre-school experience at the end of Year 1 Comparison of children with and without pre-school experience within a contextualised multilevel model controlling for pupil background SECTION 1D: Teacher identification of Special Educational Needs Children identified as having SEN during KS1 Characteristics of children identified by teachers as having a ‘need’ Children young for their year SECTION 2: The continuing impact of pre-school quality on ‘risk’ status and attainment up to the end of Year 1 Distribution of ‘at risk’ children across pre-school settings Quality in pre-school settings and Special Educational Needs The relationship between ‘quality’ of pre-school and movement in ‘risk’ status over three time points Assessing the impact of pre-school quality on Year 1 outcomes after controlling for pupil background of Year 1 assessments SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION APPENDICES Appendix 1 EYTSEN Technical Papers Appendix 2 EPPE Technical Papers Appendix 3 EPPE child assessments Appendix 4 Items included in the Goodman Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scales Appendix 5 Significance of pre-school quality indicators after controlling for pupil background at the end of Year 1