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Bulletin 295
11 December 2023
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Free Early Education Entitlement - important dates information:
The provider portal reopens from Monday 4th December until Friday 26th January 2024 for additional Spring term data to be included in final payments. Final payments to be made week ending 8th 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 2024.
Childcare Choices have a new newsletter about the upcoming expanded offer from April 2024 which explains how and when to register for support with childcare costs. Please encourage parents to sign-up for these updates via the Childcare Choices website.
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
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Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements |
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Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...
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Providers must follow their legal responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 (for example, the provisions on reasonable adjustments).
The Council for Disabled Children are running free online 'Equality Act in the Early Years' training for practitioners. See link below for further information.
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Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The Department for Education have updated the ‘EYFS statutory framework for childminders’ and the ‘EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers’. These documents are valid from 4 January 2024.
Applications open for the Childminder Start-up Grant Scheme
On 30 November 2023, the Childminder Start-up Grant Scheme opened for applications. The scheme will support new childminders by providing them with grant funding worth up to £7.2million over the next two financial years, helping with the cost of setting up their own businesses.
The scheme will be available to all new childminders who have completed their registration on or after 15 March 2023. Individuals who have previously been registered as childminders and wish to re-register may also apply for the scheme. There must be at least a 12-month gap between the date of their previous registration being cancelled and their new registration being finalised.
The Department for Education are providing £600 to new childminders registering with Ofsted, and £1,200 to new childminders registering with a childminder agency. Childminders must apply for the grant within two months of registering as a childminder, or within two months of the scheme launching.
New Early Years Foundation Stage Profile page launched
DfE has launched a new page on Foundation Years to support teachers completing the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile. This page will be updated throughout the 23/24 academic year.
Each update will cover a new area of the Profile, focusing on topics the sector has asked for more information on.
The first update provides information on completing the Profile for children with SEND, including case-studies and information from the EYFS Profile handbook.
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EYFS Learning and Development |
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Bookstart National Robin Day
Bookstart Christmas Quiz
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Share your views with the Cheshire East 0-25 SEND Partnership
Earlier this year, the Cheshire East 0-25 SEND Partnership opened online surveys to hear from professionals, families, parent carers, children, young people, educational settings and anyone who contributes to the delivery of SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) services for children and young people aged 0-25.
There was a good response to these surveys, but we know that more people could contribute and provide their feedback. As a result, the partnership have decided to re-open the surveys for a further period in the run-up to the end of the year.
If you didn’t have a chance to complete the survey and put your views across previously, please do complete the survey now and tell us what you think.
The partnership is interested to hear about what is working well and what we could do better to improve the experiences and the outcomes of our children and young people with SEND. Please be assured that all of the responses that were previously submitted earlier this year will be included in the overall analysis.
Different surveys are available for different audiences. All surveys will close by 5pm on Monday 18 December 2023, so please complete your survey before then.
Please complete the following ‘Educational Setting survey’ if you work in an educational setting in any capacity to support at least 1 child or young person aged 0-25 with SEND.
We are also asking for your help to share with, and support, our children and young people with SEND and their families to complete their surveys via the links below.
Finally, a ‘Professionals survey' is also available for staff working for the local authority or a health service.
The feedback we receive will remain strictly confidential and will be used to help us identify what needs to be improved.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey and share your views.
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SENCO Networks
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.
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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.
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Continuous Professional Development |
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Spring Term Training now available on the Hub
The Chess hub has been updated with lots of training opportunities up for the Spring term, please take a look and book on now!
Some training available in January:
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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.
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