A reminder to please continue reporting any confirmed Coronavirus cases in your setting to the Early Years Team and Public Health Hounslow. Information should be emailed to earlyyearsadvisory@hounslow.gov.uk and please remember to include Public Health Hounslow in the same email - publichealth@hounslow.gov.uk

We have updated our Coronavirus Case Record and you can access the new document here.

Please remember to inform Jan Milstead if your setting needs to close and copy in Chrissie Elam and Angela Doidge-Nelson.

As some of you may know, Sarina Dhillon, who is the Early Help Practitioner for the East Locality, has decided to take an extended leave from 16^th July 2021 and will be back to her role on 18^th October 2021.The name and contact details of her temporary replacement will be shared once appointed. 

Sarina has been a part of the Early Help Hub since it launched in September 2019 and has really enjoyed working in the East Locality and building great partnerships across all services. We are very appreciative for all the hard work that Sarina has done and hope that she has a restful break. 

In the meantime, please do continue to contact the duty line on 020 8583 6653 or send your email queries / referrals to earlyhelphub@hounslow.gov.uk

Bitesize Training and Activity Videos

The Early Years Advisors have created two training and activity videos to support you with understanding key terminology, creating a curriculum vision and sequencing a progressive curriculum for your setting. You can find them here.

Please find the collated FAQs and answers from our recent cluster information and Q&A sessions on the EYFS reforms here.

DfE Help for Early Years Providers Webpage

The DfE webpage features information and resources all in one place to support you to understand and implement the changes to the EYFS. It has had new sections added including additional support on curriculum planning, reducing paperwork, oral health, working in partnership with parents and carers and English as an additional language. You can access the webpage here.

The contingency framework describes the principles of managing local outbreaks of COVID-19 in education and childcare settings. It covers all types of measures that settings should be prepared for, which includes those that may be recommended as part of an enhanced response area.

Therefore all education and childcare settings need to implement a Covid-19 outbreak management plan which details a response to any recommendations from the contingency framework to which providers may need to respond.

If settings have concerns about responding to any of the recommendations within the contingency framework this should be discussed with the Local Authority, Department of Public Health or Health Protection Team.

Ofsted have released a new version of the early years inspection handbook that will come into force on 1 September 2021. Ofsted guidance on inspecting registered early years and childcare providers under the education inspection framework is primarily a guide for Ofsted inspectors on how to carry out inspections, however it provides childcare providers a great understanding of how the inspection will be carried out and descriptors for the different judgement grades.

For the full document and a summary of the changes please click on read more. 

The Duchess of Cambridge has set up an Early Childhood Research Centre with the ambition of changing the way society thinks about the first five years of a child’s life and transforming the lives of future generations.

Duchess of Cambridge launches early years research centre | Nursery World