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Bulletin 370

24 November 2025

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

Liquidlogic

Establishment Portal – Spring term estimation

The estimate submission period closes on 30 November. Please add any future starters for spring term to the Live Register before using the Estimate Submission Wizard to submit your claim.

Estimates can be found in the Early Years dropdown menu.

Establishment Portal – Future starters

Future starters added to the establishment portal for spring term will not appear on the Live Register. The new starters will, however, be included in the Estimation submission. New starters can be viewed by clicking on the future starter button found at the top of the Live Register.

Establishment Portal – provider messages

Please continue to monitor the establishment portal for any messages from the FEEE Team. Important messages will be sent via the portal as well as the Early Years and Childcare bulletin.

Business Support

Reminder to apply/reconfirm childcare funding codes for free childcare entitlements for working families with children aged 9 months to 4 years old

Safeguarding

Families First Partnership - DSL's Webinar

Families First reforms in Cheshire East are designed to strengthen the support available for children and families through more joined-up, relationship-based working. These reforms place prevention, early help, and children’s voices at the heart of everything we do.

There will be an information session on Monday 1st December 2025 - 15:30 - 16:30 on Microsoft Teams for DSL’s to update them on the upcoming implementation of these national reforms.

Please note - the time has been extended to an hour to allow time to update about the reforms and allow time for Q&A. 

Places can be booked via the ChESS Early Years Training Hub.

Nurturing Nutrition: Building Healthy Foundations in the Early Years

This vodcast is a recording of the live event held by Foundation Years on ‘Nurturing Nutrition: Building Healthy Foundations in the Early Years’. The vodcast explores how to create supportive food environments that foster positive eating habits and long-term health for children in their early years.

During the vodcast, the Department for Education and early years nutrition specialists share research, practical tips and real-world examples of effective approaches to promoting healthy eating.

Key topics included are; building healthy food foundations from birth to five, encouraging positive attitudes towards food and addressing common nutritional concerns in early years settings.

To watch the recording, click on the button below.

National Updates

Everything you need to know about free school breakfast clubs

A new blog, “Everything you need to know about free school breakfast clubs” has been published on The Education Hub.

Families will soon be able to start accessing free breakfast clubs lasting 30 minutes for their children before school through the Department for Education new free breakfast club programme.

For more information, click on the button below to read the blog. 

SEND

Family Hubs

The Solihull Approach has been rebranded to 'Togetherness'. 

Bringing the Solihull Approach to families and professionals

Please click the button below and share the new website with your families to access free learning resources on brain development, emotional wellbeing and parenting for healthier relationships and happier lives.

The website also hosts free CPD for early years practitioners in Cheshire East. Please share this with your teams.

Training

Autumn Term Training available on the Early Years Training Hub

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

SENCO Network – 1st December 2025 10:00 - 11:30 (Oakenclough Family Hub) or 3rd December 2025 18:30 - 20:00 (Microsoft Teams)

These network sessions are intended to further develop your understanding, knowledge and skills as SENCO. At these meetings there will be opportunities for discussion with other SENCO’s, networking, sharing of effective practice/materials, input from other agencies and updates on new legislation/initiatives. Attendance at each termly network is highly recommended to keep your SEND knowledge up to date.

Basic Safeguarding Awareness – 2nd December 2025 9:30 - 11:30 (Microsoft Teams)

This two-hour training course will provide basic information and understanding about safeguarding children. It has been specifically written to address safeguarding in Early Years and Childcare settings and covers practice and procedures used within Cheshire East. This training will help you to develop an awareness of, and the ability to act on, concerns about the safety and welfare of children and young people. It will enable you to understand your safeguarding role, be able to define, identify, understand and respond appropriately to signs of possible abuse and neglect and identify safer caring practices.

The PACE Approach – 2nd December 2025 18:30 - 20:30 (Microsoft Teams)

PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. The PACE model is a trauma informed approach developed by Clinical Psychologists, which is centred around building safe, trusting, and meaningful relationships with children and young people that have experienced trauma or attachment difficulties. The PACE model provides opportunities for early years practitioners to build on their attachments with children, by communicating and interacting in a way which helps children. This training will cover, an introduction to the PACE model and psychological underpinnings, a brief overview of attachment and trauma within the early years and practical strategies utilising PACE which can be applied to an early years setting.

Early Language Lead Network – 4th December 2025 18:00 - 20:00 (Microsoft Teams)

These sessions are delivered by Cheshire East Chatters Speech and Language Therapists. The Early Language Lead Network offers information and advice on how to support the early communication and language development of the children in your setting. These sessions are a chance for you to find out more about local and national updates around supporting children with SLCN. We often have guest speakers from the Family Hubs to share what’s happening in your local area.