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Bulletin 315

10 June 2024

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

Business Support

Jobcentre Plus Support for Employers

Jobcentre Plus' network of local Employer Advisers can help you to find the right people for your jobs. They will work with you to fill your vacancies using the most suitable recruitment solution, including: help with job descriptions speeding up your recruitment process promoting your vacancies in local Jobcentres and on their social media use of Jobcentre Plus offices for interviews (where available) and local recruitment events planning future recruitments find a job - a free online jobs site Contact your local Jobcentre Plus Employer Adviser on crewe.lmra1@dwp.gov.uk to advertise and promote your vacancies. This email address applies to all Jobcentre Plus' in Cheshire East.

Provider Portal Closure – Summer Term

The Provider Portal has closed for the summer term. Any further additions or adjustments for the summer term should be emailed, with a copy of the completed parental declaration form, to the FEEE Team at FEEE@cheshireeast.gov.uk

Parental Declaration Form

In readiness for autumn term and the second phase of the expanded entitlements, updates have been made to the parental declaration form.  This can be used for new children (parents can still sign the older version if in place, for any amendments). From April 2024 2-year-olds qualify for DAF and EYPP, and under 2s will qualify from September 2024, it is vital that the consent boxes on the parental declaration are ticked to enable an eligibility check to be completed.

Eligible working parents of children aged 9 months old and over can apply for 15 hours childcare

Parents need to apply for their code by 31 August and must reconfirm their details every three months via their Childcare Choices account. Codes applied for in May will have an end date in August and will therefore need reconfirming before the code can be used for autumn term 2024.

Once codes are provided by parents, please check the end date of the code via the Eligibility Checker on the Provider Portal by adding the code, child date of birth and parent/carer NI number.

Grant funding to develop new childcare places

Childcare Expansion Capital Grant

This funding is intended to support expansion of the 30-hours early years entitlement for working families and wraparound provision in primary schools. It must be spent on capital projects, and is being provided to meet the capital costs associated with projects that help ensure sufficient places for:

• Children taking up an early years place through the expanded 30-hours entitlement for qualifying working parents (from the term following the child reaching 9-months to the term in which they turn 3-years-old);
• Increasing the supply of wraparound childcare for primary-school aged children.

Projects may be funded to develop either 30-hours early years entitlement or wraparound childcare, or both.

National Wraparound Childcare Programme

Revenue funding will be available to support the operating costs of new wraparound provision.  The funding will be tapered. This reflects the expectation that the funding is used to fund set up and running costs of new and expanded wraparound places and that, as take-up of provision increases, and therefore income from parental payments increases, the level of grant funding needed to contribute to running costs to ensure sustainability reduces.

Details of how to apply for the development grants will be made available via this bulletin during summer term. Applications will be invited from all sectors; day nurseries, pre-schools, schools, childminders, before and after school childcare providers.

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements

Safer Sleep Notification - A New Safeguarding Partnership

Merseyside Police and the NHS would like to invite you to hear more about the development of an innovative Safer Sleep notification. The work builds on the Safer Sleep programme delivered across the North West region last year and has culminated in an excellent initiative between Merseyside Police Prevention Hub, Cheshire & Merseyside ICB and Provider trusts and The Lullaby Trust.

You are invited to hear more about this excellent initiative at a "lunch & learn" session on Thursday 20 June 12:00 - 1:30pm via Microsoft Teams.

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...

Providers must put appropriate arrangements in place for the supervision of staff who have contact with children and families. Effective supervision provides support, coaching, and training for the practitioner and promotes the interests of children. Supervision should foster a culture of mutual support, teamwork, and continuous improvement, which encourages the confidential discussion of sensitive issues.

National updates

DfE Early Years and Childcare Expansion Provider Roadshow

The Prime Minister on 22 May called a general election on 4 July, and parliament dissolved on 30 May. We are now in a pre-election period; this will last until the General Election concludes.  During this time Civil Servants and Ministers must adhere to published Cabinet Office guidance and are limited to discussions on operational essential matters and can’t comment on future policy government matters.

For this reason, the DfE have postponed the DfE North West region Early Education and Childcare Expansion Provider Roadshow on 20 June 2024 and apologise for the late notice and any inconvenience this may cause.

The DfE are looking to re-arrange the event in September/October time and will send out further details on how to register for this new date shortly and really looking forward to seeing you and providers in your region later this year.  

EYFS Learning and Development

Let's Get Ready for School Book Bags

If your little ones are doing a transition day soon to 'Big School' ready for September, why not borrow some of the libraries 'Let's Get Ready for School' book bags? Each one contains four specially selected books for sharing with young children as well as some helpful information about starting school. They are free to borrow and you can find them on the library catalogue: https://cheslive.koha-ptfs.co.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-shelves.pl?op=view&shelfnumber=8191

BookStart Bike Week

To contact BookTrust, please see the contact details below:

Frances Lennon, BookTrust Coordinator - 07827 954086

Sarah Harrison, BookTrust Administrator - 07827 877966

bookstart@cheshiresharedservices.gov.uk

SEND

The 3 dimensions of transition

The term ‘school readiness’ is often used in relation to attributes, skills and knowledge children need for a successful school start, but this is only one part of the jigsaw. According to UNICEF (School readiness - a conceptual framework, 2012) there are 3 dimensions to school readiness, and all 3 must work together.

Ready child – does the child have the skills, knowledge and attributes they need to enable them to be happy, secure and ready to learn? What exactly do they need and how can we support them to gain these skills? This may look different for each child. Settings will need to support children to develop these skills over time, it can’t all be done in the summer term before they leave!

Ready school – does the school have all the information they need to support the children that are arriving? Have they collected this information from previous settings and parents, preferably via face-to-face meetings? Have they met the children and got to know them a little? Have they reflected upon the unique needs of this cohort when planning their provision and transition procedures and altered them accordingly?

Ready family – Do the family feel they are part of the process? Do they have all the information they want and need? Do they know how they can support their child through the process? The SEND Code of Practice also states that, for children with additional needs, settings should agree with parents what information will be shared with the receiving setting/school, so you will need to discuss this with families.

Cheshire East SEND Transition Team contact details:

Rachael Pickles – Transition Team Manager:
rachael.pickles2@cheshireeast.gov.uk 07816 144386

Loren Whiteside – Transition Adviser:
loren.whiteside2@cheshireeast.gov.uk 07557 801258

Tanya Houghton-Heath – Transition Adviser:
tanya.houghtonheath2@cheshireeast.gov.uk 07385 002348

Early Years Forum

Please can we remind everyone that if you are emailing any supporting documentation for children being presented at the Early Years Forum, that you email it to the Early Years forum inbox: Earlyyearsforum@cheshireeast.gov.uk
Please do not email this information to individual staff members.

Early Years Forum – Professional Portal access for uploading information

Where a child is due for review at Early Years Forum, Forum will ask childcare settings to provide an update on the child’s progress since the previous Forum. Requests for information will be sent to you via the professional portal.

If you are not already registered on the professional portal, you will need to create an account. To enable you to do this, the Business Intelligence Team will email you with instructions on how to register.

Please register for an account as soon as you receive an email from Business Intelligence so that you can respond to requests for information and attach any supporting documents via the professional portal, ensuring increased security when sharing sensitive data.

Cheshire East Chatters

Cheshire East Chatters Talking Walk-in's

Cheshire East Chatters Summer Term Training

Family Hubs

Childminder Pop-Up's

Childminder Drop-In's

Cheshire East Family Hubs

Continuous Professional Development

Stories and Rhymes Roadshow - 2nd July 2024

Summer Term Training now available on the Early Years Training Hub

The ChESS Early Years Training Hub has been updated with lots of training opportunities for the Summer term, please take a look and book on now!

Upcoming training:

Safer Recruitment - 18th June 2024 09:30 - 16:00 (Oakenclough Family Hub)

This one-day course gives childcare providers, including childminders who employ assistants, information and understanding they need to recruit safely and comply with relevant statutory guidance. This course covers safer recruitment and the wider context of safeguarding, the prevalence of abuse and profile of abusers, important features of a safer recruitment process including interview and selection, setting acceptable standards of behaviour and maintaining an ongoing culture of vigilance.

WellComm - 19th June 2024 09:30 - 14:00 (Oakenclough Family Hub)

During this session there will be opportunities to discuss and define terms relating to communication and how these relate to the WellComm screening tool, examine the rationale behind using WellComm to screen, track and monitor individual children and discuss the practicalities of setting up targeted groups.

Owners, Managers and Childminders - 19th June 2024 18:30 - 20:30 (Teams)

Owners, Managers and Childminders briefings are an opportunity to hear the latest updates from our Early Years Team, network with other owners, managers and childminders and ask questions. We hope to see as many of you as possible.

Owners, Managers and Childminders - 20th June 2024 10:00 - 12:00 (Monks Coppenhall Family Hub)

Owners, Managers and Childminders briefings are an opportunity to hear the latest updates from our Early Years Team, network with other owners, managers and childminders and ask questions. We hope to see as many of you as possible.

Introduction to Signalong - 25th June 2024 09:30 - 12:00 (Oakenclough Family Hub)

This training course will focus on, core vocabulary signs, methodology of Signalong and how the use of Signalong can aid children’s communication and understanding. The Education Inspection Framework focuses on interactions between staff and children, Signalong can support practitioners in looking at interactions from a different perspective so as to be inclusive of all children wherever possible.

Early Language Lead Network - 26th June 2024 10:00 - 12:00 (Teams)

This network will consider how children with limited understanding might feel, and how adults can support them to make sense of the world, with lots of practical tips for your nursery environment. There will also be an update on the Family Hubs rollout across Cheshire East and to increase awareness of all the brilliant services they offer for children and young people.

EYFS - Learning and Development Requirements and Assessment - 26th June 2024 10:00 - 11:30 (Teams)

This course will explore Section 1 - ‘The Learning and Development Requirements’ and Section 2 - ‘Assessment’ of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework for group and school-based providers. This training looks at the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and offers useful links and information to take back to the setting when considering curriculum, assessment and Ofsted expectations.

Effective Interactions - 27th June 2024 09:30 - 15:30 (Congleton Library)

This one day interaction training course aims to discuss and define terms relating to communication and why interaction is so important. During the session you will look at 'Top Tips for Talking' and ways you can adapt your interactions to promote communication and support the needs of the developing child, you will discuss how language levels and interaction styles differ between children and how you can differentiate to support individual children's communication development and then focus on the practicalities of how to integrate high quality adult-interaction into your daily routine.

Don't Forget!

Early Years Training Hub – reminder to sign up

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

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

Then click on the sign up button on the top right hand side of the login page.

The ChESS Early Years Training Hub button on our Early years training webpage will also give you access to the Hub.

Through our Early Years training page, you can find information about the training and CPD offer available to Early Years practitioners in Cheshire East.

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