Nursery managers and practitioners are often the first professionals to identify that a child may have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND). It is the nursery worker who may find themselves having to have that first, difficult conversation with a child’s parents, and attempting to navigate the convoluted SEND support system with little training or knowledge.

Kerry Murphy’s A Guide to SEND in the Early Years is not just a book for special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinators (SENDCos) but for anyone invested in advocating for the rights of all children. In some settings the nursery manager is also the SENDCo, and even when they are not, they often spend a lot of time chasing support and funding, or working closely with parents. Murphy advocates a whole-team approach to SEND support, with all practitioners developing their SEND-based skills and knowledge, but also provides advice on selecting the right person as SENDCo and demonstrating good SEND leadership.

The author says her book aims to help settings unpick what they are already doing and make it better, with chapters covering topics such as implementing key policies and procedures and understanding the “graduated approach”. The chapter focusing on helpful and harmful approaches in parent partnership stresses the need to work alongside parents, remembering that you can learn from them and trying to adjust the pace of support to their needs, in order to build trust.

Murphy takes a strengths-based and “pro-neurodiversity” approach, which means understanding children’s strengths, interests, differences and needs, and understanding neurodivergent children rather than focusing on “fixing” them or training them to behave neurotypically.

Overall the book is extremely well-written, using clear language and with plenty of tips and activities in boxes throughout, as well as case studies that bring policies and procedures to life. With government figures showing 18.4% of children in England have some kind of special educational need – up from 17.3% in 2023 – A Guide to SEND in the Early Years is a vital handbook for nursery managers.

More from Nursery Managers Book Club: Social Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care