Chancellor Sajid Javid has announced an additional £66 million early years spending to increase the hourly rate paid to childcare providers that deliver the Government’s free childcare offer. As well as the funding for early years, there will be £700 million for SEND and an extra £2.6 billion for schools in England. Read more here.

In September Ofsted updated the Education Inspection Framework (EIF), setting out their inspection principles and the main judgements that inspectors make. The two key documents in Ofsted's EIF  that effects registered early years settings in England are:

• Early Years Inspection Handbook (2019)
• Inspecting Safeguarding in Early Years and Skills Settings (2019).

You can read about these changes here.

The National Audit Office (NAO) is currently carrying out a value-for-money study on the Department for Education’s (DfE) entitlements to early education and childcare in England. The DfE plans to spend £3.5 billion in 2019-20 on the three entitlements which it funds – the disadvantaged 2-year-olds, plus universal and extended entitlements for 3- and 4-year-olds.

The NAO study into early education entitlements is focusing particularly on whether the DfE supports disadvantaged families and children effectively through these entitlements, but it also follows-up to their 2016 report; evaluating the effectiveness of the DfE in delivering the free early education and childcare entitlement.

PACEY has published its response to the NAO here.

Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education Angela Rayner announced plans to replace Ofsted and extend “free” nursery education to all two-year-olds.

The plans presented by Ms. Rayner would see Ofsted abolished and replaced with a new inspectorate. A two-stage inspection system - with regular ‘health checks’ run by local authorities and if required, more in-depth visits from full-time, trained inspectors - the HMIs (Her Majesty's Inspectors).

Find out more about the proposals here.

Some providers offer knowledge only qualifications which are not recognised by the Department for Education (DfE). These may be advertised as a level 3 qualification, but they are NOT full and relevant, which means that the staff member cannot be counted in ratio as a Level 3. For example, the Level 3 Health, Social Care and Early Years, is NOT full and relevant.

To check your staff are fully qualified before enrolling onto an Early Years qualification, click here. 

Don’t forget to ensure that staff with a Level 3 Early Years Educator qualification have English and maths GCSE (Grade C/4 or equivalent) – they need these to be counted in Level 3 ratios (although the GCSE passes are not required for practitioners who passed earlier courses). The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS 2017) also requires newly-qualified Level 2 and 3 entrants to the early years workforce to have either a full paediatric first aid (PFA) or emergency PFA certificate within three months of starting work.

All Qualifications offered by the Early Years and Childcare Training Centre accredited and ‘Full and Relevant’ meeting the DfE requirements.

For more details visit the Learn Together website.

Huntingdon's Debbie Watling wins the Childminding Business of the Year category at this year's Nursery World Awards. NWA judges say Debbie is an inspiring model for what childminders can achieve beyond their setting, with an impressive commitment to caring for vulnerable families.

Debbie offers a service which is unique in her area as a 50:50 childminder, splitting her time between childminding at home and running the family learning and inclusion creches with her assistants at the local child and family centre.

This means that the centre can offer creche provision for children, many with English as an additional language, while parents attend parenting courses.

Congratulations to Debbie and also to Julie & Jo's Childcare, and all the other nominees here.

Wednesday 25 September 2019 was National Fitness Day, and many settings took part in fun physical activities, such as The Daily Mile™ some even invited parents in, to enjoy obstacle courses together with their children.

Physical development is widely recognised as a key element of young children’s learning, one of the three Prime Areas of Learning within the EYFS. Cambridgeshire Early Years and Childcare service (CambsEYC) have developed two packs ‘Physical Activity Matters’ and ‘Physical Activity Matters at Home’ to support early years providers in promoting children’s physical development, as part of fostering a wider awareness of healthy living.

Samples of both these resources are available to view and purchase on the Learn Together website.

For enquiries please contact earlyyears.service@cambridgeshire.gov.uk or 01223 706 133

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils are delighted to welcome Toni Bailey as the new Assistant Director for SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disability) and Inclusion. Toni has 20 years’ experience as a teacher, 10 as a Head, during which time he has chaired a national network for teachers of young people with social, emotional and mental health needs.

Toni said, “I am looking forward to bringing my expertise, energy and child-centred approach to my new role, but equally I am keen to learn and develop alongside new colleagues and partners to achieve the best outcomes for all our children, young people and families."

Workforce focus groups in September gave professionals from across early years – childcare and education, early help, maternity, heathy child programme and voluntary sector – the opportunity to hear about the strategy and contribute to emerging proposals.

The 5-year strategy aims to improve the life chances of children pre-birth to 5 by addressing inequalities, narrowing the gap in attainment and improving outcomes for all children, including disadvantaged children and families. It will focus on three key outcomes:

• Children live healthy lives
• Children are safe from harm
• Children are confident and resilient with an aptitude and enthusiasm for learning

These outcomes form the basis for further activity and service development in implementing the strategy.

Further information can be obtained by emailing Transformation.Team@cambridgeshire.gov.uk 

Cambridgeshire Early Years and Childcare Service (CambsEYC) are very pleased to introduce the revised Early Years Quality Framework.

The Quality Framework has been devised to support early years and childcare settings to continue to improve practice and to provide invaluable experiences for children.

The updated version of the framework is available to download from the Knowledge Hub.

Please note: CambsEYC will no longer automatically providing settings with hard copies of the Quality Framework. The Framework is free for Cambridgeshire providers to use, and we hope you will gain from it. However, we do ask that you please consider the environment before printing.

Cambridgeshire’s assessment system CASEY now includes data from the ASQ3 and ASQ:SE tests overseen by health visitors. Data will be regularly imported and matched to children attending each setting.

Summary scores will be viewable alongside the child’s EYFS and Every Child a Talker assessments, with an overview table giving a snapshot of the number of assessments in the white (no concerns), grey (possible concerns) or black, where an assessment has shown concerns about the level of development.

CASEY is offered free to all settings in Cambridgeshire settings and can provide the perfect tool for managing your EYFS assessments, ECAT assessments and now staff development and training.

Calling all Cambridgeshire charities and community groups.                                           Do you need project funding?

Support Cambridgeshire has invested in a new initiative called ‘Support Cambridgeshire 4 Communities’; a free self-service funding portal where you can search for grants to support your work.

Upon registration, any community organisation can immediately access a complete database of funding opportunities and business advisory services.

Children’s communication charity I-CAN have developed a bespoke 3-part training programme which will be designed and delivered by a qualified speech and language therapist.

The programme devised for Level 3 practitioners and above and will support you (or up to 2 staff members) in:

• Understanding typical speech, language and communication development in children and how to spot when that goes wrong
• What you can do to support children’s speech, language and communication development
• Working with parents to give them the understanding and skills they need to support their own children’s speech, language and communication

You will also receive a free ‘Early Talk’ toolkit packed full of resources to help you in supporting speech, language and communication throughout your setting. The training is fully funded and a subsidy is also available to help with any staffing or travel costs.

To find out more, please email keeptalking@ican.org.uk by Monday 7 October 2019.

Talking Together in Cambridgeshire is delighted to announce that they have recently granted funding awards for the following projects:

• Wellies in the Woods: Groundwork East (Chatteris)
• Play & Borrow - Talking Together at Little Rainbows Toy Library:  NCCP (NE Cambridge City)
• Story Sacks: Childminder Champions (Wisbech & Huntingdon)
• Talking Pages: Kettle’s Yard (NE Cambridge City)
• Creative Families – Talking & Eating Together: The Fitzwilliam Museum (NE Cambridge City)

Further information on each of these projects can be found on the Learn Together website.

As well as following the Early Years and Childcare service on Instagram, @cambseyc you can now join CambsEYC on              Facebook: facebook.com/cambseyc.

The new page is a great place to share all the latest sector news and information focusing on continuous professional development within Cambridgeshire, along with upcoming conferences and events.

Please feel free to comment and share any posts of interest.  CambsEYC encourages you to use the platform much in the same way as you have already been using the ‘Learn Together Knowledge Hub’. To ensure respect is maintained within the group, the Early Years and Childcare service kindly ask that you self-moderate your interactions and, where relevant seek permission before sharing any third party content.

Should you like CambsEYC to share a post on your behalf, you can contact the service directly via Facebook Messenger: m.me/cambseyc or eycinfo@cambridgeshire.gov.uk