1 Children with special needs should be enabled to participate in activities.
* Plan a physical activity session that includes a child with cerebral palsy who uses a ladderback chair. Indicate how you adapt the activity for children with different levels of development and abilities. Your assessor can question you on your session plan. Place your plan in your portfolio and cross-reference to M7.
* Encourage children to develop self-help skills and to participate in activities with the minimal assistance required. Demonstrate this as part of your day-to-day work programme.
* Show your assessor records that you have completed showing a child's participation levels and progress. If this is not possible, complete a blank record sheet, omitting the child's name or identifying features, and put it in your portfolio.
2 Specialist equipment is sometimes needed to enable children to participate in comfort.
* Find out about the aids used by children in your care and specialist equipment identified in C17.1 range 2. Seek advice from specialist staff, a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, specialist suppliers and websites.
Write up your findings, adding pictures if possible, and put them in your portfolio.
3 Part of your role is to support parents and carers of children with special needs.
* Evaluate equipment and additional support required by the children in your care and describe appropriate methods of communicating this information to their parents. If you have limited opportunities to be observed supporting parents, prepare a page of an imaginary communication home/setting link book and place it in your portfolio.
* Be certain what is expected of you in your role and to whom you should refer if information requested by parents is beyond your level of responsibility. Share this knowledge with your assessor.
4 You need to demonstrate sharing effective working practice with parents, who are, of course, the experts in dealing with their child.
* Clarify any unfamiliar terms with them and share relevant information.
Include a witness statement in your portfolio.
5 Specialist equipment is a vital part of many children's lives.
* Be familiar with mobility, sensory and incontinence aids, prostheses and feeding equipment. Demonstrate your part in supporting children in their use.
* Draw a plan of your setting, indicating a suitable layout for children with special educational needs. Describe adaptations that enable maximum participation of children using their specialist equipment.
6 As with all early years equipment, specialist items should undergo all the necessary health and safety checks.
* Show your assessor how you check, clean, and safely store specialist equipment. Describe how, and to whom, you report any defects.
7 Talk to parents and specialists about how the children communicate.
* Make a list of the specialists who may help children to communicate.
Explain their roles to your assessor.
8 Children need to be supported in the use of communication aids.
* Ensure that you know how to use aids. Seek advice from parents and specialists.
* Talk to all children to help them to understand different means of communication. Teach them basic sign language or nursery rhymes in Makaton.
Your assessor can observe this.
9 Children with special educational needs must be included in all the activities of the setting.
* Plan a trip out of the setting to include all children and involve them in the community. List what you need to check, such as access, toilet facilities and transportation.
* Use all your experience with children with special educational needs in your setting. Study the whole of C17 to establish where you will most easily be able to collect direct observation evidence in your particular circumstances.
10 Top tip! Lin Marsh, Early Years Care and Education NVQ external verifier, says, 'Remember to think of children with SEN as children first.'