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Bulletin 408

5 October 2026

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

The Early Years and Childcare Bulletin is issued every week during term time and a condensed version during the school holidays. 

Liquidlogic

Midterm leavers

If you have any children leaving your setting during the term, please ensure you remove them from your live register on or after their final day.

Click ‘View Child’

Click ‘Remove’

Enter their leave date and the number of weeks funding you are claiming for the term.

This will come through to the team as a midterm leaver and will adjust your balancing payment for the term accordingly.

Business Support

Prepare for Flood Action Week 12–16 October

Did you know around 6.3 million homes and businesses are in areas at risk of flooding?

Flood Action Week is an opportunity to develop flood awareness and resilience to minimise disruption to learning and childcare: 

• Check the long term flood risk for an area
• Get flood warnings 

Safeguarding

Launch of Together for Families

On Thursday 1st October, Cheshire East officially launched Together for Families.

Together for Families is our local response to the national Families First children's social care reforms and marks a significant milestone following more than 18 months of planning, development and engagement with colleagues, partners, children, young people and families. Together for Families represents a major step forward in how we support children, young people and families.

At its heart, Together for Families is about working with our families. It’s about making it easier for families to access the right help at the earliest opportunity. By us working alongside each other, and with our partners, we can identify needs earlier, enable help and support sooner - improving outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Click the button below to read more and access key documents and resources.

National Updates

SEND

Launch of new SEND CPD training for all early years practitioners

In January, the Department for Education announced a £200 million investment in SEND and inclusion training to upskill educators across early years, schools and post-16 settings.

The first phase of a new national training offer for early years has launched with a new online training package now freely available to all early years practitioners.

Funded by the Department for Education and developed and delivered by Dingley’s Promise, this training is designed for all early years educators working with children aged 0-4 years to strengthen inclusive practice and better identify and support children with SEND.

The training offers learning across three purposely designed courses, providing practical information, strategies and reflective tools to improve inclusive practice across all early years settings.

These courses centre on three key themes of:

• Foundations of Inclusive Practice;
• Embedding Inclusive Practice; and
• Parent Partnership.

The training has been purposely designed to be accessed in a flexible way, to allow learners to work through and return to the training at times that are suitable for them.

Courses are suitable for educators of all levels and in all types of provision including childminders and contain practical strategies, tools and resources that can be applied directly to everyday practice.

All courses are freely accessible at Early Years CPD Training - Dingley's Promise.

The second phase of the new Early Years CPD programme will launch in autumn 2027, offering further online learning as well as in-depth webinars and a new local support offer, to further develop the knowledge and skills needed to put inclusive practice into action.

Family Hubs

Healthy Start Community Champions training

Community and Voluntary Services Cheshire East (CVSCE) have an online training course called Healthy Start Community Champions training. This training is free to complete and is open to anyone working with families.

If you are working with expectant Mothers who are 10 or more weeks pregnant or families who have children under the age of 4, this training course could help you to help them.

The course is split into three sections:

• Introduction to the Cheshire East Food Alliance and Healthy Start
• Applying For Healthy Start
• Increasing Uptake of Healthy Start

For more information and to sign-up please click the button below.

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!

Upcoming training next week:

Role of the SENCO – 12th October 2026 10:00 – 15:30 (Holmes Chapel Community Centre)

This course has been written for those new to the role of the SENCO and those wishing to refresh their knowledge. If you need information on Cheshire East’s graduated approach, Cheshire East’s SEND Toolkit, up to date and relevant paperwork, external advice systems and processes, then this is the course for you. We will also share useful ideas and strategies, the roles and responsibilities of the Early Years SENCO and time to discuss any questions with other professionals.

Early Years Leaders Network – 13th October 2026 10:00 – 11:30 or 15th October 2026 18:30 – 20:00 (Microsoft Teams)

The Early Years Leaders Network is for owners, managers, leaders and childminders of Early Years and Childcare settings. These networks are an opportunity to hear the latest updates from the Early Years Team, ask questions and network with other professionals.

Safe Sleep and ICON – 14th October 2026 18:30 – 20:30 (Microsoft Teams)

Join us to learn about safer sleep and ICON (Infant Crying and preventing abusive head trauma). Delivered by Charlotte Coop Specialist Health Visitor on Enhancing Families Programme, and Megan Vause Family Nurse with 12 years safeguarding midwifery experience. The training will provide information on safer sleep practices including the most up to date, evidence-based practice regarding the safest ways of babies to sleep. This session will also provide you with information regarding ICON, a national initiative to help reduce the risk of abusive head trauma, more commonly known as shaken baby syndrome.

Effective Interactions – 15th October 2026 09:30 – 12:30 (Monks Coppenhall Family Hub)

This interaction training course aims to discuss and define terms relating to communication and why interaction is so important. During the session we 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. We 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.