To ask the Minister of Education what consideration he has given to enabling non-statutory pre-school settings to directly refer children to educational psychologists.

Significant work has been completed to progress standardisation of the Pre-school Education Programme (PSEP) which has included a detailed scoping study of all funded pre-school education settings. The final report is due to be submitted to the department by the end of March 2024 and will enable my department to establish options and costs for the phased roll out of a universal, standardised, funded pre-school session length for every child whose parents want it, including options to address relevant inconsistencies and improvements in the pre-school sector.

Interim feedback indicates that issues regarding provision and support for children with special educational needs (SEN) in non-statutory pre-school settings have been raised by settings during the scoping study and I intend that these will be considered in the context of pre-school standardisation. However, all work in progressing pre-school standardisation will require agreement and extensive investment by Executive colleagues.

In tandem, as part of the End to End (E2E) Review of SEN, the department is considering the range of Education Authority (EA) support services available to all schools and educational settings, including referral pathways.