Summer event: 12 June 2023
If you haven't already, book your free place on the Early Education & Childcare Quality Officers face to face summer event, for the opportunity to network with other early years and childcare providers and key local partners who can offer support to your setting.
The first hour will be for registration, viewing the stalls and networking. There will be refreshments on arrival, and to raise money for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, we will be asking for a voluntary donation towards homemade Victoria sponge.
Monday 12 June held at Margaret McMillan Tower, Bradford
2pm - 4.30pm or 6pm - 8.30pm
Book your place below on your choice of session :
Click here to book on the 2 - 4.30pm session
Click here to book on the 6 - 8.30pm session
This will be a great networking event so please come and join us. Please note due to capacity there is a maximum of two places per setting.
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Another setting graded ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted
Caroline, the Director and Manager of Little Advocates Montessori Nursery Ltd shared, ‘the management, staff and parents are extremely happy to be awarded outstanding at our latest Ofsted inspection in January 2023. The team have worked very hard every day, and we have such positive feedback from parents and children. We never thought we would receive the outstanding grade, it just shows without realising that doing the job you enjoy and the commitment with a great team of staff, parents and children does pay off and we will continue to thrive.’
Across the Bradford District there are now 68 early years and childcare settings graded by Ofsted as 'Outstanding', this is another amazing achievement for Bradford's children.
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Safeguarding
Feeling a bit lost with all the Safeguarding updates? Book a place on the Early Education and Childcare Quality Officer’s Online Bradford's designated safeguarding lead (DSL) training. This course has been written to help build your confidence as the designated safeguarding lead practitioner. It fulfils the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework and has a focus on the Bradford District's Safeguarding Children Partnership documentation and procedures.
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Do you have reception aged children still in your setting?
If you have children who have stayed in your setting rather than starting school last September please email phillippa.degnan@bradford.gov.uk. You may need to complete an Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) for them and Phillippa will support you to do this.
Please just email Phillippa the number of children who have stayed in your setting (do not include their names or other confidential information at this point).
Bradford Council’s Libraries Service
Bradford Council’s Libraries Service is offering a host of fun family friendly activities to encourage book-sharing and reading during the Easter school holiday.
Library staff will be telling stories involving bunnies, fluffy chicks and of course Easter eggs. Booking is not essential but large groups should contact the library before attending More information click here
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'Relationships Matter' conference
Wednesday 19th April 2023, 12.30pm – 4.30pm at Bradford City Football Club Places are free
'Relationships Matter' is a programme that will benefit all agencies in public, private and third sector organisations. At the conference you will explore parental conflict, what this means for you, your team and families. Find out about local developments and support available including the launch of our new toolkit and resources Click here to book tickets
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Family Hubs and Start for Life
The Department for Education (DfE) have announced the 75 Local Authorities receiving funding to roll out Family Hubs and help more families give their baby the best start in life.
14 trailblazer areas will become trailblazers and receive extra funding. These trailblazers will lead the way and support other Local Authorities to improve services that are offered to families. Separately, the Government also confirmed the final five areas to receive investment from the Family Hubs Transformation Fund.
Services include support with parenting, perinatal mental health, parent-infant relationships and infant feeding. Further information about the Family Hubs and Start for Life announcement can be found here
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Health protection in children and young people settings - updated February 2023
Attending face-to-face education or childcare is hugely important for children and young people’s health and their future.
The guidance has been updated to provide a practical guide for staff in children and young people settings, on managing a range of infections, and minimising disruption. This includes advice on managing coronavirus (COVID-19) and other infections.
Within the tools and resources, there is an exclusion table with guidance to indicate the time period an individual should not attend a setting to reduce the risk of transmission during the infectious stage. This guidance should be used alongside the emergency planning and response for education, childcare, and children’s social care settings published in April 2022.
This guidance is not intended to be used as a tool for the diagnosis of infections. The information is designed for use by staff members in children and young people settings to prevent and respond to infection, incidents and outbreaks.
For additional information about what infections are and how they can be prevented, access the Preventing and managing infections in childcare and pre-school online course.
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Department for Education consultation response
In July 2022, the Department for Education launched a consultation to seek views around childcare providers having more flexibility and autonomy with their setting and the needs of their children, linked to the following proposals;
- To change the current statutory minimum staff to child ratios in England for 2-year-olds from 1:4 to 1:5
- To make the EYFS Statutory Framework explicit that childminders can care for more than the specified maximum of three children under the age of 5, when they are caring for siblings of children they already care for, or if the childminder is caring for their own baby or child
- To make the EYFS explicit around ‘adequate supervision’ while children are eating. This means children must be in sight and hearing of an adult at all times during eating.
The public consultation exercise sought views on making these changes and allowed respondents to express comments, views or concerns.
The Childcare Regulatory Changes: Consultation Response provides a summary of the responses received and the government’s response. The Government intend to proceed with the changes in September 2023 subject to parliamentary procedure.
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Prevent Duty training: Learn how to support people vulnerable to radicalisation
Prevent is one part of the Government’s overall counter-terrorism strategy.
Prevent Duty training - how to support people vulnerable radicalisation
In these training courses, you will learn about:
- the Prevent Duty
- different forms of extremism and terrorism
- the risk around radicalisation and your supportive role
- making a Prevent referral that is both informed and made with good intention
- the interventions and support available
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St Edmund Early Years Stronger Practice Hub
St Edmund Early Years Stronger Practice Hub has two free opportunities to share as part of the Education Recovery support package.
Talk With Tales for Children (TWiTCH)
TWiTCH is a professional development programme, developed by Sheffield Hallam University, to promote high quality adult-child interactions in early years settings. It uses repeated reading, based on one traditional story every three weeks, with additional language games and activities to create a rich language environment.
There are 25 free places to group settings with 3-5s provision to further pilot the programme. The Sheffield Hallam team will train your practitioners to adopt interaction styles that engage young children in meaningful conversations to support their language development. Express your interest here
Maths Champions Programme
Maths Champions is an evidence based online professional development programme with 12 months access, developed by National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA). The aim of the Maths Champion programme is to increase practitioner knowledge, awareness and confidence in supporting early maths in order to improve outcomes for children.
There are 25 FREE places to group settings. If you are a childminder, please express your interest, but note that the NDNA are hoping to roll it out to childminders next year. Register your interest here
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Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
The SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan sets out the DfE plans to change the SEND and alternative provision system in England. Additional measures confirmed in the Improvement Plan include:
- A new leadership level Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator National Professional Qualification (SENCo NPQ) will be created.
- A new approach to Alternative Provision will focus on preparing children to return to mainstream or prepare for adulthood.
- An extension of Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforces, to work directly with young people in Alternative Provision to offer intensive support from experts, backed an additional £4.8 million investment.
- A doubling of the number of supported internship places by 2025, from around 2,500 to around 5,000, backed with £18 million of funding to help young people make the transition into adulthood.
- £30 million to go towards developing innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families, providing crucial respite for families of children with complex needs. The programme funds local areas to test new services including play, sports, arts and independent living activities, allowing parents time to themselves, while their child enjoys learning new skills.
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The Daily Mile
The Department for Education are working with their partners over at The Daily Mile Foundation to encourage as many early years providers as possible to take part in The Daily Mile.
The concept is simple. Children run, jog, walk, wheel or ‘toddle’ in the fresh air for 15 minutes a day, improving physical development and personal, social and emotional development. Click here to find out more, access free resources, and watch a video from an early years setting doing The Daily Mile.
You can also sign-up to The Daily Mile (for free) and receive a free welcome pack in the post.
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Foundation Years
Foundation Years is funded by the Department for Education and is now delivered by the strategic engagement partners, Coram Family and Childcare; and Hempsall’s . It is their aim to 'engage, connect and support' best practice for everyone interested and working in early years and childcare
Aim and purpose of Foundation Years;
- Provide news and updates on policy and practice
- Provide online and live events to keep updated and learn from each other
- Make information easy to access
- Support the community for the whole sector – anyone working with the EYFS, from first day of their studies and throughout their careers in all roles
Foundation Years webinar and face to face event
Coram Family and Childcare, and Hempsall’s delivered their first online Foundation Years webinar on February 2023, which is available for you to watch here
The foundations years website is being reviewed to improve accessibility, with the aim that the website is the go to place for the sector.
There will be four online webinars (February was the first) and four face to face events, the first being held in London on 24 April 2023 10.15am - 3.15pm.
The event will include:
- Learning about sensory food education from Department for Education colleagues and TastEd, including practical ways to in include in your setting
- Exploring recruitment and retention of the workforce with James Hempsall and a Local Authority case study
- Examining curriculum progress with international early childhood education expert Jan Dubiel
Book your place here
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Keep yourself well informed
There are lots of sources for information guidance and support available online. This is not an exhaustive list and please note we are not endorsing any specific organisations
NSPCC Learning
Children and loneliness
The NSPCC has launched its new campaign on loneliness which explores the experiences of children and young people alongside new Childline data which shows that the service is contacted on average 15 times a day by children struggling with loneliness. The campaign uses day-in-the-life videos to show how young people experience loneliness and aims to encourage conversations about mental health. Read the news story: Day in the Lonely campaign encourages children to share their feelings
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Pandemic and mental health
Spurgeons Children's Charity has published a blog on the pandemic and child mental health issues. The blog looks at the impact of the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of children and provides calming techniques and strategies for anxiety. Read the blog: In a post-pandemic world, children are struggling with anxiety more than ever. What can we do to help? See also on NSPCC Learning > Child mental health
Do you receive Current awareness for policy, practice and research (CASPAR) newsfeeds, if not sign up here
New evidence-based resources to support the early years sector
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has launched a suite of evidence-based resources dedicated to the early years sector.
These resources are designed to support early years professionals by providing insights about which approaches are likely to improve learning and development outcomes, as well as support to implement approaches in your settings.
Take a look here
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Home learning environment
New online resources and communications campaign
In October, online resources were launched to encourage parents to chat, play and read more with their children, since we know that the home learning environment is crucial in boosting children’s language and social and emotional development in the early years.
These expand the NHS’s Better Health Start for Life website with evidence-based materials for parents on fun learning activities they can do with children at every stage between birth and 5 years old, and a search facility to connect them to local support.
This work is supported by materials for early years professionals and other stakeholders to use in their everyday interactions with families that might benefit from support
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Bradford babies talking
Gill Holden, Early Childhood Programme Lead at the National Children’s Bureau, reflects on five key messages presented at a unique event about speech and language development Bradford babies talking
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Child Accident Prevention Trust
Rogue online sellers risk children’s lives
Last year, 91 types of toy were recalled because they were dangerous. A report from the British Toy and Hobby Association found that, out of 101 dangerous toys withdrawn from sale on online marketplaces, 65 seemingly identical toys were still on sale a year later. Despite this, our new research reveals that 70% of parents never check to see if a product has been recalled and 93% don’t know how to check. That’s why we’ve set up a new advice hub where parents and practitioners can check if the toys and childcare products they’re buying are safe Click here to visit the advice hub
Save the date for Child Safety Week 2023
Child Safety Week is Monday 5th to Sunday 11th June
Everyone is pushed for time but preventing accidents doesn’t have to be hard. Simple changes can prevent the scariest accidents. Therefore the theme for this year’s Child Safety Week is Safety Made Simple. It's all about sharing the really practical, simple things we can all do to keep children safe Sign up here to stay up to date
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Family Corner
Family Corner is the family arm of the Early Years Alliance, offering expert advice and support on children’s early learning and development including;
- learning through play
- behaviour, comminication, health and nutrition for the very young
- free monthly newsletter
- free online learning for parents
Something to share with parents Visit Family Corner here
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