Only high-quality provision for funded two-year-olds will tackle
disadvantage and support the early identification of SEN - and
practitioner/parent teamwork will help, says Dr Kay Mathieson.

The Government's funded places initiative for two-year-olds is intended as an early intervention to tackle disadvantage and as a means to support the early identification of special educational needs. Few would argue against enabling all children to have a positive start to their lives as an aspiration, but provision must be of high quality if it is to have a positive impact on children's learning and development, and identify the early signs of developmental delay.

The positive impact of high-quality provision was demonstrated in the Effective Pre-school and Primary Education (EPPE) project (Slyva et al, 2010) - and more recently Mathers et al (2014) have identified four dimensions of quality provision for the under-threes:

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