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Bulletin 284

18 September 2023

Welcome to our Early Years and Childcare bulletin. Previous bulletins are available at: Cheshire East Early years and Childcare Bulletin

Business Support

Free Early Education Entitlement – Autumn Term Data

The portal is now open again for you to add any additions or adjustments to your autumn term data. It will remain open until Friday 22 September.  

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements

Prevent duty risk assessment templates for early years

The Department for Education have published an updated Prevent duty guidance and risk assessment templates for early years. Further information on the link below.

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...

Providers must have regard to the government's statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ and to the ‘Prevent duty guidance for England and Wales.’

Department for Education

DfE Survey on Assessment in the Early Years Foundation Stage

The Department for Education has launched a short survey to seek the views of early years practitioners, teachers and school and setting leaders on assessment in the EYFS. The survey includes questions on assessment of children with special education needs and disabilities, the early learning goals and the EYFS Profile. Feedback from the sector will help shape future policy development in this area.  

The survey is available here and will remain open until Tuesday 3^rd October.

EYFS Changes vodcast: 4 September

The Department for Education have released a new vodcast. In this vodcast, Jade Gilks (Head of the Early Years Qualifications Unit at the Department for Education) sets out the three changes being made to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Statutory Framework from 4 September 2023. She is joined by Wendy Ratcliff (HMI, Principal Officer for Early Years Education at Ofsted), and both answer some frequently asked questions about what the changes mean in practice for settings.

You can watch the vodcast and download the slide pack on the link below. 

EYFS Learning and Development

Bookstart World Alzheimer's Day

SEND

Early Years Forum

We are excited to announce the launch of our Early Years Forum in September. Forum meetings will be held in both the North and South localities. The purpose of the Early Years Forum is to work as a multi-agency team to drive inclusive early support for our youngest children (0-4) with identified SEND needs.

Early Years Forum members will consist of representatives from Education, Health, and Social Care. Members will monitor children’s progress working alongside parents/carers, settings, and other professionals to recommend types of provision or, in cases where children have complex needs will make a recommendation for a Needs Assessment. Early Years Forum will capture parent/carer views and ensure decisions are made based on a child or young person’s needs in co-production with families.

Most referrals to Early Years Forum will be from health professionals, however, please contact us via the email address below to check if Forum is aware of a child with SEND at your setting. Early years settings should refer children to the Forum where it is believed that a child may have SEND following the graduated response.

Needs Assessment requests will be supported by the Early Years Forum, requests should no longer be sent directly to the SEND Team.

Referrals to Early Years Forum can be made via the Setting Referral form https://childrenandfamilieseportal.cheshireeast.gov.uk/web/portal/pages/eyforumref#h1. The date forms are received informs which monthly Forum the referral will be viewed and discussed.

Please contact EarlyYearsSenHelpline@cheshireeast.gov.uk or call 01625 374170 if you have any queries.

Early years consultation on SEND network meetings

The early years team would like your views on starting an Early Years SENCO network meeting to facilitate settings sharing best practice and overcoming inclusion barriers.

Please could you fill in this short form to express your views so we can ensure that the meetings meet the needs of most early years providers:

https://forms.office.com/e/6nmsuBGDhn 

SEND Consultations

If you would like to book an SEND consultation, please email earlyyearsandchildcareteam@cheshireeast.gov.uk

You will be sent paperwork to complete, once that is completed and returned you will be offered an SEND consultation slot.

Cheshire East Chatters

Cheshire East Chatters Talking Walk-in's

This half term’s key message poster from Cheshire East Chatters is all around the impact of screen time on communication, a really important one to share with your families, as screen time is a part of everyday modern life. The American Academy of Paediatrics (2016) advises just one hour of screen time a day for children age 2-5! Screen time reduces opportunities to engage in hands-on shared experiences with the world around us, which is how children learn language.  Research tells us that reduced opportunities for hands on play reduces opportunities for communication to develop (ICAN).  Screen time has also been found to have some links with social communication difficulties, likely due to reduced opportunities for social interaction (Hermawati et al. 2018).  Excess screen time can also impact on a child’s behaviour and sleep patterns. Some points to consider: Screens including whiteboards can be a source of background noise- this will interrupt the concentration of children during other play activities in the classroom. In the home learning environment, it is important to have quiet, screen-free time to support children’s play, language and concentration. Children may learn curriculum words such as colours, numbers and letters through a screen, however these types of words are not useful for a child trying to communicate a message. Language is learned through exploration with the real world and hands on experiences build brains! Coming in a future bulletin… ways to use screens together with children to support their development. We have information, tips and activities on reducing screen time on the Cheshire East Chatters Facebook page so please follow us and let your parents know about us too! https://www.facebook.com/cheshireeastchatters If you want to get in touch then please email cechatters@mcht.nhs.uk

Parenting Journey

Continuous Professional Development

Training opportunities

The Chess hub has been updated with lots of training opportunities up until December, please take a look and book on now!

Some training available in the next few weeks:

Understanding the EIF and the Learning Walk - 19th September 2023 9.30-11.30am (Teams)

This two hour online session will give providers an opportunity to consider Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework in the light of the new Early Years Foundation Stage framework.

Let's get Outside - 27th September 2023 1-3pm (Teams)

Join us to get ideas about how you can enhance your outdoor learning environment to give children the opportunity and space to explore and investigate. All attendees will receive a copy of our ‘Let’s Get Outside’ toolkit to help enhance their outdoors no matter how small, large, man-made or natural it may be.

Prevent - 28th September 10-11.30am (Teams)

The Prevent Engagement Officer for Liverpool City Council will be leading this Prevent training session for early years providers. The training will cover the Prevent duty, different extremist ideologies that can lead to terrorism and the risk around radicalisation and your supportive role.

Difficult Safeguarding Conversations - 4th October 2023 9.30-11.30am (Teams)

My CWA training

Early Years Professional Development Programme

Don't Forget!

Early Years Training Hub – reminder to sign up

Thank you to everyone who has already signed up to the new Early Years Training Hub. If you haven’t yet signed up, please do so now.  You can sign up by accessing this link:

Chess Early Years Training Hub (sla-portals.co.uk)

Then click on the SIGN UP link on the top right hand side of the login page.

The Provider Login button on our Early Years and Childcare Training Resources (cheshireeast.gov.uk) webpage will also give you access to the new Early Years training Hub.

Through our Training and Events page you can find information about the training and CPD offer available to Early Years practitioners in Cheshire East. You can access the Hub via the link on our training web page:  however you will need to request personal login details by signing up to the Hub.

Please note: If you already have access to the Schools Chess Hub you do not need to sign up again however please email us to request additional access user rights to the Early Years Hub.