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Broadcast for Early Years and childcare providers in West Sussex from West Sussex County Council
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Wednesday 13 July 2022
Safer Recruitment, Selection, and Induction
Recent Ofsted inspections and safeguarding investigations have regularly highlighted weaknesses in recruitment, selection, and induction processes. Safer Recruitment, Selection and Induction is a subsidised online course we have available for £10 which demonstrates good practice in these areas. It is suitable for anyone recruiting new staff or for the Designated Safeguarding Lead, who can then ensure those responsible for hiring have considered the recruitment process from a safeguarding perspective.
What will I learn: how to safely recruit and retain the best performing staff with this online course. Recruiting the right staff is a tricky process, but particularly for early years. Your recruitment, vetting and induction process needs to be watertight as you are responsible for safeguarding the children in your care. Once you have recruited the right person, they need to start off feeling a part of the team and immediately follow all policies and procedures. This course will help owners and managers implement a safer recruitment process, followed by a thorough induction system for new staff. Following the procedures in this course will help you to recruit and retain the best staff, and to ensure the safety of the children in your care.
Key topics include:
- Job descriptions and person specifications
- How to write a job advert
- Shortlisting and interviewing
- References and ID checks
- Successful and safe inductions
To book and pay:
- Make the £10 per attendee payment through the WSCC payments portal on our website: www.westsussex.gov.uk/eytraining
- Email early.years.training@westsussex.gov.uk to let us know you wish to purchase this course.
- You will receive an email with logon instructions. Once logged on, you have six months to complete the course.
Course duration is three hours and if you have any queries, please contact early.years.training@westsussex.gov.uk.
Welcome message from new Head of Service for Standards and Effectiveness
Dear colleagues
I just wanted to introduce myself to you now that Early Years has joined our service within West Sussex County Council. I have really found it so useful getting to know the Early Years team and finding out what are the pressing issues facing the Early Years sector as we come out of a very difficult couple of years.
Clearly, there is much to do as far as recruitment and retention of staff are concerned as well as meeting the needs of children coming into our settings. I know you all work very hard to provide the best you can for the children in your care. We need to work closely together in order to be as effective a service as possible and tackle the additional challenges for our sector at this time.
Our priorities for next year are all to do with recruitment, retention, sufficiency of places as well as, critically, the fundamental importance of high quality safeguarding within all settings. We also want to focus on helping support you in improving the quality of education for all the children in your care, especially those who are most vulnerable. I am sure these priorities will resonate with yours and we look forward to working with you to bring about that further improved provision.
Yasmin Maskatiya
Head of Service: Standards and Effectiveness
Welcome message from Senior Education Adviser for Early Years
Dear Colleagues
I am excited to be introducing myself to you in my new role as Senior Education Adviser with oversight/responsibility for Early Years.
I qualified as a teacher with a specialism in early years and working as a teacher I soon realised that my calling was the ability to shape the outcomes and life chances for the youngest in our society. I have been involved in the children’s centres and SureStart agendas and have worked with the private, voluntary and independent sector as part of two London borough local authorities.
Since the early years team moved into Education and Skills, I have been working closely with the team. Part of my role will be to support the development and implementation of a strategy that covers ambitions and outcomes for children aged birth to 19.
It is my intention, along with the team, to be focused on the common themes for the early years sector as Yasmin Maskatiya has outlined. I know first-hand, what an amazing job providers of early years education and childcare do in meeting the needs of the sector. Therefore, I will be aiming to engage with as many providers of early years and childcare as possible in the coming months, as we shape our strategy and work together to address some of the challenges you are facing at this time.
I am very much looking forward to meeting with you all in due course.
Helen Gillespie
Senior Education Adviser for Early Years
Message From Your Early Years Representative
Hi Colleagues
Having been nominated the PVI Rep for the West Sussex School’s Forum, I have now participated in the last two meetings. A key focus of the School’s Forum involves the Designated School’s Grant (DSG), the money allocated to WSCC by the Government, which includes funding for the Early Years block. As you are no doubt aware, the biggest portion of this funding is accounted for in the form of the Free Entitlement for 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds but it also funds our SEND provision, which I know from experience is an area where the Early Years sector often lacks funding and support. As your rep, I would like to be able to better represent you in these meetings so I am working with our Early Years colleagues in West Sussex on ways in which this can happen. One way is through these Updates so I am hoping that, in the future, I will be able to seek your views which, in turn, will help me to present a united case and give us a stronger voice on the forum. I look forward to working with you in time for the next forum meeting.
Regards
Sharon Moody
SEND and Inclusion Newsletter
The July edition of the SEND and Inclusion Newsletter is now available.
To allow our Early Years and Childcare Advisors to focus their support to where it is most needed, we ask that you check for information online before you contact us.
COVID-19 guidance
Other information and guidance (WSCC)
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Practice support (EYFS, Diversity and Inclusion, health and wellbeing, transitions, legislation, regulation and safeguarding)
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Supporting families in your childcare setting (includes CLaWBA, integrated reviews)
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Tools for schools and settings (supporting the inclusion of all children in early years)
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Business support (Free Entitlement, marketing, finance, recruitment, advertising)
- Training and qualifications
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Network meetings/events (Learning and development, INCO SENCO, business and welfare)
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Online Provider Portal (submission dates, help guides)
For help to access information
To request additional support for your setting
Please inform the Family Information Service if your setting needs to close or is re-opening. Email family.info.service@westsussex.gov.uk and include your setting name, Ofsted URN, the date you intend to close/open, and any changes to your operating hours. If you inform us of re-opening, you will be reinstated on the public list and appear on our website www.westsussex.gov.uk/fis.
If closing due to COVID-19, please consult the guidance to check when to inform Ofsted.
In the event of your setting having a confirmed COVID-19 case, if Public Health or the Department for Education have stated you must close for any period of time you must inform the Family Information Service. However, if Public Heath have not explicitly stated in correspondence to you that the setting must close, we would expect you to make contact with your Early Years and Childcare Adviser (EYCA) to talk through your circumstances, where possible, before making the decision to close the setting. If you are not able to make immediate contact with your EYCA then please email your nearest Early Help Hub using the following email addresses:
Where there are not clearly evidenced reasons why the setting had no option to close, there could be implications for funding received as per the government guidance.
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#222 (Free Entitlement estimates, 30 hour code deadlines, Government drive to reduce the cost of childcare, Update from Early Years Team Managers, Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs, The power of music to change lives, Looking after children during heatwaves, National week of play)
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#221 (Free EY SEND training from ICAN; updating information with FIS; NPQ early years leadership course; foundation years vodcast on infant mental health; infection prevention and control webinars reminder)
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#220 (Free entitlement summer term payments; free entitlement autumn term estimates; 30 hour codes deadline; LADOs; sensory food education; music in the early years blog; safeguarding courses)
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#219 (Have your say on mental health and wellbeing in the sector; recruitment on Facebook; Advance notice of planned IT upgrade; Early Childhood Hub; infant mental health awareness week; trauma awareness training)
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#218 (Advance notice of planned IT downtime, Beyond COVID-19 infection prevention and control public health webinars; safeguarding reminder; action planning to improve outcomes for children with SEND; infant mental health awareness week)
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