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Bulletin 294

4 December 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 - important dates information:

The provider portal reopens from Monday 4^th December until Friday 26^th January 2024 for additional Spring term data to be included in final payments. Final payments to be made week ending 8^th March 2024.

Expanded entitlements from April 2024 onwards

From April 2024, the early education entitlement will be expanded for working families of younger children so they can access 15 hours per week, increasing to 30 hours per week by September 2025.

The expanded offer for younger children will be introduced in stages:

• From April 2024 - working parents of two-year olds can access 15 hours
• From September 2024 – working parents of children aged 9 to 23 months can access 15 hours
• From September 2025 – working parents of children aged nine months upwards can access 30 hours

Parents must work at least 16 hours per week and each parent must not earn more than £100,000 to be eligible for this expanded funding. Eligibility can be checked on the Childcare Choices website.

Applications for working parents of 2-year-olds will be accepted from 2nd January 2024 on the Childcare Choices website. To be eligible from 1 April 2024, children must have had their second birthday before 31 March 2022.

The current entitlement for 2-year-olds remains unchanged. Parents in receipt of certain benefits are able to check their eligibility for 15 hours funded childcare at any time via our webpage, or by contacting the Family Information Service on 0300 123 5033.  

FEEE Balancing Payments - Remittance Advices

You will receive remittance advices with the amount of your balancing payment. 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

Reminder to apply for or reconfirm 30 hours childcare funding codes

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...

Providers must provide access to an outdoor play area or, if that is not possible, ensure that outdoor activities are planned and taken on a daily basis (unless circumstances make this inappropriate, for example unsafe weather conditions).

National updates

Latest Department for Education Blog

The Department for Education have published their latest blog called 'When can I apply for 15 hours free childcare?'

You can access it on the link below.

Mental health for early years children – Help for Early Years Providers

We all have mental health, just as we have physical health. In the same way that we can be more or less physically healthy from time to time, we can also be more or less mentally healthy from time to time too.

Help for Early Years Providers has added new information and guidance on supporting babies and young children with their mental health.

The guidance:

• explains how practitioners can support positive mental health in early years children
• includes emotional and behavioural support strategies to use in early years settings
• links to further reading and resources

For more guidance on supporting children in the early years, visit the Help for Early Years Providers website.

EYFS Learning and Development

Bookstart Hanukkah

Bookstart Christmas Quiz

SEND

SENCo Contact Details

Please ensure that the SENCo contact details for your setting are up to date. If you have referred a child at your setting to the newly created Early Years Forum, the outcome of Forum will be shared with SENCos via the contact details held on the Provider Portal.

Please check the information held by the Early Years Team via the Staff section of the Provider Portal and add/delete SENCo details as required. Guidance notes are available.

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 Christmas Dummy Campaign

As in previous years, Cheshire East Chatters is running the ‘Give your dummy to the Christmas Elves’ campaign throughout December, and we’d love you to get involved! This is a great opportunity to raise awareness about the impact prolonged use of dummies can have on children’s speech and language development, and to encourage children and families to drop the dummy in a positive way. Dummies can: Make it difficult for children to babble or practise sounds Stop the full range of mouth movements that are needed to make different speech sounds Make the muscles at the back of the mouth dominant, leading to an overuse of the ‘k’ and ‘g’ sounds Weaken the muscles at the front of the mouth, leading to increased dribbling Increase the risk of ear infections Cause a gap between the top and bottom teeth, which can lead to a lisp Affect the physical structure of the mouth – this lasts until adulthood Research also shows that children with dummies in their mouths are communicated with less frequently.  This means they hear less language and have fewer turns in interactions, which has a negative impact on language development. You can help by: Displaying key message posters in your settings Sharing key message leaflets with your families Sharing Cheshire East Chatters Facebook posts to spread the message Setting up a ‘dummy drop’ in your nursery – lots of ideas coming up on Facebook eg wrap the dummy up / post it to the Elves, hang on the Christmas tree Replacing the dummy with a thank you letter from the Elves, and maybe a little treat! We’d love to see your dummy campaigns in action – please send any photos to cechatters@mcht.nhs.uk or message us on Facebook. For more information follow the link below to the Facebook page.

Family Hubs

Childminder Drop In Christmas dates

We are looking forward to seeing lots of childminders at our monthly drop in at Congleton Library and Monks Coppenhall Family Hub. This month we will have a festive theme so come in your Christmas jumpers and we’ll get into the Christmas spirit together.

Continuous Professional Development

Free Health Training for staff in schools and other child focussed settings

Please find below details of 2 training opportunities for anyone working with children

1. Why Weight to talk

In Cheshire East, we want to make it easier for everyone to achieve and maintain a healthier weight. We know that being able to talk about weight and being signposted to relevant support can really help, but many practitioners find it a difficult subject to bring up.

The team at Food Active have developed a universal training programme to help practitioners across the borough to understand more about healthier weight and learn new ways of engaging in short conversations to support children and families and to signpost them to services where appropriate.

There are a range of training sessions, online or face to face, available from November 2023 to March 2024.

Further details and booking arrangements can be found at:

Why weight to talk Cheshire East

2. Asthma training

‘The National Capabilities Framework for Professionals who care for Children and Young People with Asthma’ training is aimed at anybody who may encounter a child or young person with asthma and includes childcare providers, those working in education, uniformed services, sports coaches, social services, local government, health care workers.

Courses are FREE and accessible though https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/.

This training will help to raise awareness of Asthma and support people to be aware of the skills and knowledge that are required to ensure they can safely care for a child and young person with asthma. More information can be found here: Asthma (Children and young people) - elearning for healthcare (e-lfh.org.uk)

Upcoming 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:

Don't Forget!

Cheshire East Key messages regarding infections including colds, flu and Covid-19

The key underlying public health message for respiratory illnesses including COVID-19 and flu is that if someone is too unwell to attend school or work and carry out their normal activities or if they have a raised temperature, they shouldn't be in the setting. They should stay at home until they are well enough to return.

Most people no longer have access to COVID-19 tests but, if they do and they test positive for COVID-19, then the current NHS advice is to try and stay at home for five days (three days for children) after the first positive test result. After this time, they can return even if they have a positive test result, if they are well enough.

A few people may have a positive COVID-19 test but have no symptoms. It is likely that they are infectious and so can pass on the virus, especially during the early stages, so the advice would be to try to work from home for five days if possible. If they are unable to work from home, then a risk assessment should be done to explore what options are available.

Actions for settings

• Manage each infection in line with the NHS/UKHSA advice
• Contact UKHSA if necessary
• Report cases via the online form – request call back if further advice needed
• Issue parent/carer letters re measles and advice re illness

Key links and contacts

Health protection in education settings

UKHSA – candmphu@ukhsa.gov.uk  or 03442250562

Cheshire East Cheshire East education settings infection reporting form

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.