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Bulletin 344

17 March 2025

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

Business Support

Virtual Childminder Drop-In

Thursday 20 March 18:30 - 19:30 on Microsoft Teams

If you were unable to attend the virtual childminder drop-in last week, another session is available for childminders this Thursday evening for you to ask questions and seek support on regulatory or practice issues you may have concerns about. There’s no agenda. Please feel free to join the call and raise your questions. We’ll cover what we can on the session and get back to you if we need to look into your query further.

Please email earlyyearsandchildcareteam@cheshireeast.gov.uk to request the Teams link.

Free Early Education Entitlement Contracts

Contracts for financial year 2025/26 will be issued electronically via DocuSign. To avoid any delays in receiving your contract, please log onto the Provider Portal and check the staff details provided. Each setting is required to provide the name and email address for the following members of staff:

• Designated Safeguarding Lead
• Free Entitlement Contract Signatory
• Free Entitlement Administrator
• Manager
• SENCo

Please follow the guidance notes to submit your staff details. Childminders, please ensure your Free Entitlement Contract Signatory email and Free Entitlement Administrator addresses are correct. This can be checked by logging onto the Provider Portal and clicking on the Staff tab from the homepage.

Eligibility Checker

Please use the eligibility checker to check codes before entering child data to check start and end dates of codes for the summer term.  Codes with an end date before 31 March 2025 will need reconfirming.

Provider Portal

The Provider Portal will close on Sunday 23 March for interim payments to be calculated.  Interim payments to be paid by Friday 18 April to providers who submitted data by the deadline.

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements

Safeguarding and Welfare Requirements: Focus on...

Group and school-based providers Providers must tell staff that they are expected to disclose any convictions, cautions, court orders, reprimands and warnings that may affect their suitability to work with children (whether received before or during their employment at the setting). Providers must not allow anyone whose suitability has not been checked, including through a criminal records check, to have unsupervised contact with children being cared for. Childminders Childminders must tell assistants that they must disclose any convictions, cautions, court orders, reprimands and warnings that may affect their suitability to work with children (whether received before or during their employment at the setting). Childminders must not allow anyone whose suitability has not been checked by Ofsted or their CMA, including through a criminal records check, to have unsupervised contact with the children being cared for.

National updates

Protect and Prepare Webinars for Education Settings

The Department for Education (DfE) in partnership with the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) invite you to a webinar relevant to those working in education settings.

The DfE Counter Terrorism Protect and Prepare Team will provide you with an overview and update on the proposed Protection of Premises Bill, also known as ‘Martyn’s Law’, and its implications for the education sector. NaCTSO will also provide a briefing on how to consider terrorism protection and preparedness in your setting. 

Please note: This content may be subject to change as the bill progresses through Parliament.

You only need to attend one of the webinar sessions, the input is identical.

Please click on the buttons below to register.

Supervised toothbrushing for children to prevent tooth decay 

Children in the most deprived areas of England will get access to a programme to help protect them from tooth decay, the government has announced. 

The supervised toothbrushing programme will be rolled out in early years settings and primary schools, with funding available from April, helping hundreds of thousands of children aged between 3 and 5 years old to develop positive brushing habits.

For more information, please click on the button below.

DfE Early Years and Childcare Expansion Childminder Virtual Roadshow

Join DfE’s Early Years Team for an online roadshow event for Childminders working in the early education and childcare sector on Wednesday 26th March at 18:30 - 20:00.

This event is a great opportunity to help shape this government’s plan for change and hear about the strategy and activity underway to meet the pillar in its Opportunity Mission to give children the Best Start in Life. You will have a chance to engage with DfE colleagues on the work they are doing to meet the expanded childcare entitlements from September 2025 and share your ideas, concerns, and challenges. 

The event will include an overview and update from the Department for Education and give those joining the opportunity to share experiences and views in virtual roundtable discussions.  

Please click on the button below to register.

Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is one of the most studied vaccines
and millions of doses are given every year.

Measles cases are rising in the North West. 

Providers will have received an email with a letter to share with parents/carers around the MMR vaccine. 

EYFS Learning and Development

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

Transition – Patrick’s Journey – through the eyes of a young person

Part of the work of The Transition Team has included promoting virtual tours within their settings to help students become familiar with the new environment prior to visiting. Thank you to those settings that have now added these to your websites; they do help reduce anxieties.

The Fallibroome Academy and Patrick, a young man in Year 10, have taken this initiative a step further. The video ‘Patrick’s Journey’ highlights the struggles of navigating a busy mainstream setting when you have complex needs and are a wheelchair user, but it also shows that it is possible with the correct level of support. The team would love to see more of these videos promoting inclusion and offering reassurance to those who might worry about accessing support within education.

Click the button below to watch the video.

Cheshire East SEND Transition Team contact details:

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

Cheshire East Chatters

Easter Dummy Campaign

Easter is another great of time to encourage your child to give up their dummy and bottles. As we know in Speech and Language therapy - the overuse of dummies and bottles can have a lasting impact on the child's communication skills causing sounds to be made in the wrong place, usually from the back of the mouth instead of the front, and did you know that research tells us that babies and young children who have a dummy in for long periods are less likely to be spoken to! This can impact their development of words, crucial in allowing them to express their needs and form friendships.

Family Hubs

Continuous Professional Development

Summer Term Training on the Early Years Training Hub

The ChESS Early Years Training Hub is currently being updated with lots of training opportunities for the summer term, please watch this space!