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Bulletin 285

25 September 2023

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

Business Support

Autumn Term Data

The portal has now closed. If you have any new children or adjustments to add, please email the FEEE Team at FEEE@cheshireeast.gov.uk confirming the date from which the change begins. 

FEEE Payment Admittance Advices

Providers who submitted autumn term 2023 data by the deadline will have received payment remittance advices. To find out what these payments relate to, please refer to the Administering the Free Early Years Entitlement (cheshireeast.gov.uk) webpage to access the Payment remittance advice guidance document.

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...

Providers must ensure that people looking after children are suitable to fulfil the requirements of their roles. Providers must have effective systems in place to ensure that practitioners, and any other person who may have regular contact with children (including those living or working on the premises), are suitable. Safer Recruitment training is on Friday 17 November 2023 9:30 - 16:00 at Oakenclough Family Hub and is now available to book on via the training hub.

Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC)

Please be aware that MARAC Meetings and any information provided by SCiES is strictly confidential and is not to be shared with any parties.

The information provided may include material deemed to be:

Restricted / Non disclosable intelligence and as such is strictly for your awareness in safeguarding and supporting children and young people.

It is really important that information requested by SCiES is returned to the team as soon as possible.

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 Learning and Development

Ofsted Early Years Curriculum - Communication and language webinars

Ofsted have published 5 Early Years Curriculum - Communication and language webinars. These short webinars for registered early years providers and schools explain why communication and language are so important, what a good curriculum should look like to support development of communication and language, and the ways that children make progress through knowing and remembering more. Ofsted also have two webinars, one for registered early years settings and one for schools, explaining how they look at communication and language on inspection.

Bookstart World Heart Day

SEND

Early Years Special Educational Needs Inclusion Fund (SENIF) Policy Consultation 2023

Cheshire East Council is proposing revisions to its "Policy for the support for children with SEND accessing the early education entitlements".

Special Education Needs Inclusion Fund (SENIF) is targeted support for childcare providers to meet individual needs. Support is not provided directly to the child / family.  The revised methodology focuses on an incremental approach to support, concentrating on flexible provision to support children's needs, such as training to upskill practitioners, additional equipment and resources or for children with the most complex needs additional staff support at times they may require it to effectively meet their needs.

You can give your feedback on this draft revised policy either by:

Completing this short online survey https://surveys.cheshireeast.gov.uk/s/SENIF_Policy_Consultation_2023/

Emailing the Early Years and Child Care Team Earlyyearsandchildcareteam@cheshireeast.gov.uk

This consultation will close on 20 October 2023.

Please share this information with parents and carers.

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, PSED or Communication and Language consultation, please email: earlyyearsandchildcareteam@cheshireeast.gov.uk

You will be sent paperwork to complete, once that is finished and returned by secure email, including with a parent/carers signature, you will be offered a 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! You can make the most of this by: Using screens for the purpose of communication through video calls with family and friends. Choosing age appropriate TV programmes / apps Watching TV / playing games with your child and talking about what you see. Switching screens off when you are playing. Relating what you child sees on the screen to the real world – add language and hands-on experiences. Set, and stick to, limits on screen time to ensure a good balance of more interactive activities for children.  And be mindful of your own screen use – children learn from the behaviours of those they see around them! The National Literacy Trust’s Literacy Apps Guide has reviews and recommends apps for children to support a love of reading and later literacy skills. You can search for apps by age. http://literacyapps.literacytrust.org.uk/ 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

Family Hubs

'Why weight to talk?' training

Public Health are offering a free training session around weight stigma and having positive conversations about weight with children and families. The training is open to any professionals and early years practitioners who may be interested in learning more. Further details can be found via the Eventbrite booking on the link below.

Childminder Networks

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:

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)

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.