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Portage - supporting pre-school children with SEND

Portage is an educational service for pre-school children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), who are not attending an early years setting.

We support pre-school children who have a significant delay in 2 or more areas of their development.

What we offer

We offer bespoke packages of intervention to support your child’s development through group and home learning sessions. We support your child's learning and development using a small steps approach, focusing on planned play activities to help each child’s development.

To help you, we:

  • Support your child’s development through play with regular attendance at portage groups or home learning sessions.
  • Give you an opportunity to try out different approaches and strategies in the sessions as well as ideas to try at home.
  • Develop ideas which grow from a shared knowledge of your child's development.
  • Break down activities into small steps to make sure your child’s learning is successful.
  • Assess, monitor and record your child's progress.
  • Work in conjunction with other agencies.
  • Provide a robust joined up transition into an early years setting.

Working with you

Our Portage Practitioners will work in partnership with you, recognising that you are the best people to teach their child. Your involvement is essential in both the planning and delivery of the sessions, which can be either weekly, fortnightly, monthly face to face and virtual.

Using the Kent Best Practice Portage Assessment linked to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), Portage helps your child to develop their:

  • communication and language
  • personal social emotional development
  • physical development
  • literacy
  • mathematics
  • understanding of the world
  • expressive art and design.

Make a referral

Children do not need to have a diagnosis for a referral to be made, parents and professionals can make referrals to us. There are three ways to make a referral to us:

Complete a Portage referral form

Our office is open from 9am to 2:30pm, Monday to Friday. You can email or leave a voicemail outside of these hours.

Websites parents may find useful

Or visit one of the following charities for your area: