Your childcare rights: Scotland

All children have the right to early learning and childcare at a certain age and to have their needs met. This includes children with all types and levels of deafness. Understanding your legal rights can help you make sure that your child gets the support they need. Knowing your rights and being able to voice them when you need to can be very empowering for you as a parent and can give you confidence that you're doing everything you can for your deaf child.

Equality Act 2010 

The Equality Act 2010 is an important law that provides disabled children with a number of rights and protections. Under the Act, all permanently deaf children meet the definition of disability. 

The Equality Act 2010 means that public bodies, including local authorities and childcare providers: 

• must make reasonable adjustments 
• must promote equality of opportunity for disabled children  
• can’t discriminate against your child – in other words, a childcare provider can’t refuse to accept your child simply because they’re deaf. They also can’t treat your child less favourably than other children by, for example, not allowing them to do certain activities that other children can do. 

Reasonable adjustments 

If your child is disadvantaged by something that an education or childcare setting does, and if there are any simple or inexpensive things that the setting can do to overcome this, they must do it. This is known as making ‘reasonable adjustments.’ 

Reasonable adjustments can include: 

• making sure there are subtitles on the TV if showing a children’s programme 
• staff receiving training on how to use a radio aid 
• moving the reading corner to an area with good acoustics and lighting 
• providing ‘auxiliary aids’, including radio aids. 

Most reasonable adjustments cost little or nothing and are relatively easy to put in place. You have an important role to play in letting the childcare facility know what steps they can take to support your child. 

What is reasonable will depend on the facility’s size and financial resources. It may be easier for a local authority (council) or a large nursery to make a reasonable adjustment than it is for a small childminder.  

Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) 

The government has put in place an early years and early intervention policy, called Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC). GIRFEC is a national approach to promoting, supporting, and safeguarding the wellbeing of all children and young people, in order to uphold children's rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). GIRFEC puts your child at the heart and helps them get the right support from the right people at the right time. 

GIRFEC provides a consistent framework, shared language and common understanding of wellbeing. It tracks the wellbeing of children against whether they’re Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included. This is often shortened to SHANARRI. Your child’s the nursery or other early years setting should use SHANARRI to measure and share your child’s progress against these wellbeing indicators. 

Additional support needs (ASN) 

A child or young person is said to have additional support needs (ASN) if they need extra support in order to benefit from education. Most, but not all, deaf children may be viewed by their local authority (council) as having ASN. Your child may have ASN if they have, or you think they are likely to have, more difficulty in learning than other children of the same age.  

How children and young people with additional support needs (ASN) should be supported in their education is set out in the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. The Act applies to all children and young people in public education, from the date they begin funded early learning and childcare until they leave secondary school.  

All nurseries, playgroups, pre-schools and registered childminders that are funded by the local authority must follow the laws set out in the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 and Part 6 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. They must also follow guidance called the Additional support for learning: statutory guidance (2017) (gov.scot). 

Find out more about ASN and additional support for learning (ASL) in early education and childcare.

Childcare legislation and guidance 

An important piece of legislation for families is Part 6 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. This states that an education authority must make sure there’s enough or ‘sufficient’ childcare in the area for eligible pre-school children. Education authorities should produce a report on how they’re making sure there’s enough childcare to meet the needs of children in the area. This should be available on your local authority website, or you can ask them to send you a copy. 

Local authorities must provide information to parents about childcare available in the area. 

Transitions 

Education authorities have a duty to support transitions to early learning and childcare, as part of additional support for learning (ASL). This is laid out in detail in the chapter 6 of the Additional support for learning: statutory guidance (2017). 

You can use the Bright Start transition planning document to help your child’s childcare setting help their transition into formal childcare. Transition planning support may not be automatically offered even though it should be. You may have to advocate for your child with your local authority. 

Education Scotland inspections 

The Care Inspectorate is responsible for inspecting all early learning and childcare (Care Inspectorate). This includes settings funded by the local authority or not. Childminders and nannies must be registered with both their local authority and the Care Inspectorate. 

All schools are inspected and reviewed by Education Scotland. This means that any early learning and childcare provision based in a school are inspected by Education Scotland. For example, nursery classes or a pre-school within a primary school.  

Medical conditions 

Nurseries, pre-schools and childminders must take steps to ensure children with medical conditions get support to meet their medical needs. If your child has glue ear or another form of temporary hearing loss, this can be regarded as a medical condition. 

Read the guidance Supporting children and young people with healthcare needs in schools (gov.scot). This guidance requires formal childcare settings, like pre-school or nursery, to make sure that: 

• children with medical conditions are supported so that they have full access to education, including to physical education and school trips 
• staff receive appropriate training 
• there is someone in charge of how the school supports children with medical conditions 
• they have a policy that sets out how they will support children with medical conditions (this should be readily available). 

Funding 

You may be entitled to help with the costs of early learning and childcare. All three to four-year-olds are entitled to 1,140 hours of free childcare a year (30 hours of free childcare a week in term time). Find out how to apply for free childcare (scot.gov). If your child is looked after by the local authority or you receive certain benefits, they may be eligible for funded childcare from two years old.  

Childcare is only free if the provider is registered with the education authority (local council) and meets specific criteria as part of the new early learning a childcare (ELC) National Standard (gov.scot). This includes achieving a ‘good’ or ‘better’ evaluation in an inspection by Care Inspectorate. There is guidance for local authorities on free childcare Early learning and childcare: statutory guidance (gov.scot). 

You will not be able to use your free childcare entitlement with a nanny, au pair, home carer or family member.  

Parent Club Scotland is a government information and advice platform for parents. Find more information about funded early learning and childcare (Parent Club). 

Making a complaint 

If you have any concerns, try discussing it with the manager of the childcare facility. In most cases, you should be able to resolve any problems with them directly. Depending on the type of childcare, they may have a complaints policy. 

If this doesn’t address your concern or your concern is urgent, you can contact the Education Authority directly. If you’re using a registered childminder, contact the childminder agency directly. You can also get advice about additional support for learning in Scotland from Enquire Helpline.  

If your complaint is about the range of childcare services available in your area, you can complain to your local authority. Your local authority website should have information about how you can do this.