 We are pleased to welcome Ian Logan and Pavani Allada to the Early Years team this term. They are joining Shelley, Sarah and Marie in the funding team and will be supporting with the early education funding headcount and payments processes, supporting providers with funding queries and all things Synergy! Please continue to use the eyfunding@portsmouthcc.gov.uk for your funding queries, and for more complex queries please give us a call, we will respond to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience during this time.
 The Department for Education and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have become aware some early years settings are attempting to protect children from measles through ‘COVID-style’ cleaning.
While cleaning is good practice, it does not offer effective protection from measles. The MMR vaccine is the safest and most effective way to protect children and staff against measles, mumps and rubella.
You can help by encouraging parents and carers to take up the offer of vaccines for their children when they are due. Where there are suspected cases of measles in education settings, you should notify your local health protection team (HPT).
Links:
 A drop in clinic run by Neurodiversity Practitioners to guide you in supporting children and young people in managing challenges around inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity and discuss strategies to support with this.
 The Early Years and Childcare team would like to wish The Parade Community Pre-School a very happy 25th birthday!
 The Department for Education expects all education settings to have a climate action plan by 2025.
Our 'Creating Your Climate Action Plan' webinar is aimed at giving you the information you need to write your own bespoke Climate Action Plan. There will be a brief overview of environmental impact and how it affects us in Portsmouth. We will share with you the Sustainability Support for Education website which is a useful tool for finding early years specific ideas to include in your Climate Action Plan. Once you have some ideas about the intent for your plan, we will move on to the implementation of your plan; how to write your plan and where you could look for support and potential funding. We'll round off the session with a look at the impact your Climate Action Plan could have on your children and families.
Creating Your Climate Action Plan - 18 September, 9:30am - 11:30am, Microsoft Teams - £70
Or we can support you in producing an action plan specific to your setting during a 2 hour onsite visit for £265.
Or you could register to attend a free interactive workshop.
 If you would like to nominate members of your team to attend PEEP training to be trained as a PEEP Practitioner, please complete this booking form and send to the Business Support Manager at Home-Start Portsmouth: hannahc@hsportsmouth.org.uk.
Training will take place on 7 and 8 October at Home-Start Portsmouth HQ, PO1 4HA. Training is typically 9.30am - 4.30pm and delegates will be required to attend both days. More information, including confirmation of times will be given to delegates nearer to the training date. The deadline to submit the booking form is Friday 12 September 2025.
The PEEP Learning Together programme is about practitioners running sessions for parents to learn how to play and support their child in a range of areas supporting the EYFS. We have a number of trained PEEP practitioners in Portsmouth who will be running PEEP or PEEP informed groups in Family Hubs and through 1:1 work in family homes, e.g. Home-Start Portsmouth.
As an Early Years setting, why not join our Portsmouth PEEP community and access free 2 day training and then have the license to run your own family sessions within your setting? Take a look at the website for more information.
Once trained as a PEEP Practitioner, you will be able to access ongoing support through a Portsmouth PEEP forum and members of the Early Years team who have also been trained will be able to answer questions about how you can deliver PEEP to your families. So if one of your setting priorities is to support families to understand how to play and learn together with their children, this is the training and opportunity for you!
 Please share with families...
Portsmouth's family voucher scheme is back - offering a £50 supermarket voucher per child to low-income families who weren't eligible for one through their school.
You are eligible if your total income is £1,870 a month or less (not including benefits and tax credits), and:
- You have children aged 0-19
- Someone in your household is 20 weeks or more pregnant
It's open to families who've already received food vouchers for school-age children, but who have other children who are aged 0-4 or 16+, as well as families with a low income who don't qualify for free school meals. It's also open to families with home educated children.
The scheme is open until Thursday 25 September (closes 12 noon) and you'll need to apply.
Exceptional Hardship Scheme
Another window of applications is also open for our Exceptional Hardship Scheme for Portsmouth residents in extremely financial hardship.
The easiest way to apply for either scheme is online - click below for details and how to apply.
If you need help to apply you can call the council on 023 9268 8010.
 BBC CBeebies Parenting/Tiny Happy People, a service from BBC Children’s & Education, has a wealth of content for families to support the skills children need to start school.
Check out the ‘Skills for Starting School’ collection page full of free content to share with families, from introducing the potty and toilet independence to language learning.
The website also has activity ideas, tips and advice, child development facts, key talking tips for any age and much more.
To find out more about CBeebies Parenting/Tiny Happy People join one of the free monthly Champions Training sessions. This virtual 45 minute session explains what’s available and how you can use the content with families you work with.
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