The West Sussex approach puts the child first. We work with children, families, communities, our partners and schools in a restorative, strength based way. Strong relationships are at the heart of what we do.
Broadcast for Early Years and childcare providers in West Sussex from West Sussex County Council
Difficulty viewing this bulletin? Click here to view in your browser.
Wednesday 12 October 2022
Government's Energy Support Schemes
The government recognises the impact rising energy prices can have on businesses, voluntary sector or public sector organisations of all sizes, including all Early Years settings. The energy regulator Ofgem and BEIS are in regular contact with business groups and suppliers to understand the challenges they face and to explore ways to protect consumers and businesses.
Owners of Early Years settings (including childminders) can contact the government’s Business Support Helpline for free and impartial advice at enquiries@businesssupporthelpline.org or 0800 998 1098.
Equally, Citizens Advice offers free independent advice about business energy contracts and consumer rights. Citizens Advice can be reached via phone at 0808 223 1133 or on their website: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/. You can find more information here about how the scheme relates to different types of contracts here.
Starting School Questionnaire
The Starting School Questionnaire is now open for families to complete. The aim of the questionnaire is for parents to share any concerns they have about their child starting school. This will enable you to offer information, advice and guidance to support families and provide reassurance to enable a smooth transition to school. It may also identify a need for additional support and a referral to other agencies if appropriate.
The Starting School Questionnaire can be completed by parents online, or you can share the paper version with families in your setting. If you are using the online questionnaire, please use the attached template email for you to send to families. The online questionnaire can be found at https://westsussex-self.achieveservice.com/service/School_readiness_questionnaire and it is included in the template email. In order for you to see the responses from the parents, the parents will need to identify which setting their child attends using the setting address, so it is important that you add this information to the template email before sending to families.
Please provide them with the full name and the postcode of your setting based on your Ofsted registration. The completed forms will then be sent to your setting email address for you to review and respond to any issues raised.
If a family completes the online questionnaire without identifying the setting that their child attends, then the information will go to the Healthy Child Programme (HCP). An HCP practitioner will then contact these families if appropriate. HCP will not see the questionnaire responses for children who are identified as attending a West Sussex early years setting.
If you are using the paper version, please print and share with families, asking them to return the completed questionnaire to you. There is no need to return copies of the completed questionnaire to us.
Whichever version you use, the questionnaire should be shared with families with children in your setting born between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019 and therefore due to start school in September 2023. We would encourage you to monitor the completion of forms and follow up with any families who have not completed them. Please also check that they have applied for a school place before the deadline of Sunday 15 January 2023.
Wrap around childcare for Armed forces Families
The Ministry of Defence has announced that after a series of successful pilots, wrap around childcare (WAC) will be available to all eligible Service personnel in the UK from autumn 2022.
Service personnel can apply for up to 20 hours per week, term time only (39 weeks per year) of wraparound childcare funding for 4 to 11-year-old children attending before and after school clubs in the UK. To be eligible, the Service person and their partner, or a sole parent in a lone parent family, must be in paid employment, or re-starting work within the next 31 days, earning a weekly income equivalent to 16 hours at the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage.
Funding can be used with any Ofsted approved (or equivalent) childcare setting, however the childcare provider must be able to accept payments from Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) accounts and a TFC account must be set up for each child that they want to claim funding for. If you have families accessing your setting that may benefit please make sure they are aware of this scheme. To find out more, including more information around the eligibility criteria, please read these FAQs.
Network Meetings
In addition to the face to face network meetings advertised last week (#235) we are offering online networks. These will be open to anyone from across the county and may suit those who are not able to travel to the in-person meetings for any reason. To book, search for the EYT code on the Learning and Development Gateway.
- EYFS Leader Network - Tuesday 25 October - 1.00pm to 3.00pm - held on Microsoft Teams (EYT 22/2462)
- SENCO/INCO Network - Monday 7 November - 1.00pm to 3.00pm - held on Microsoft Teams (EYT 22/2463)
We can now confirm the codes for the following network meetings:
- SENCO/INCO Network (Crawley) - Thursday 3 November - 1.00pm to 3.00pm (EYT 22/2461)
- Childminder Network - Wednesday 16 November - 7.00pm to 8.30pm (EYT 22/2464)
- Childminder Network - Saturday 19 November - 9.30am to 11.00am (EYT 22/2466)
Early Years Designated Lead Forum
The West Sussex Virtual School is running termly online forums specifically for early years settings. These will be hour long meetings for managers and practitioners to support their work with Children We Care For. They will be providing up to date information on support on Children We Care For, and guidance on completing the Personal Education Plans (PEPs) each term. They will provide an overview to their training offer which is for all settings and include updates relating to the work of the Virtual School. The focus theme for the forum is Regulation.
These networks are in addition to the current Learning and Development and SENCO/INCO network meetings.
- Session: EYFS – DL Forum (for Designated Leads, SENCOs, any Key Person supporting children we care for).
- Date and time: Monday 14 November 1.30pm to 2.30pm (Online via Teams).
- Overview: Termly forum with the EYFS Virtual School (VS) team to discuss the work of the VS, PEPs and future training.
Book via the Learning and Development Gateway and search for Early Years Designated Lead Forum Looked After Children (Online) (EYT 22/2433).
Virtual School Website
The West Sussex Virtual School strives to champion the education of West Sussex children that are cared for, have experience of care or who are known to social care.
They have a new website which is now live! The website contains information, advice and guidance for professionals, carers and young people about what the Virtual School is, who they support and how to get in touch. Please have a look to find out more about the work that the school does to support the education of children we care for and how the new advisory service works with professionals to improve outcomes for children with a social worker. The new website can be found on this link.
Inclusion Courses
Places are available on our Inclusion courses and are suitable for any level of practitioner.
The Role of the Inclusion Coordinator (Webinar): clarifies the Inclusion Coordinator role and explores the skills needed through practical activities and discussion. £52 per place.
- Wednesday and Thursday 19 and 20 October 10.00am to 1.30pm (EYT 22/223).
Exploring inclusive practice (Webinar): is suitable for any role. It explores attitudes to inclusion and unconscious bias. Models of inclusion are considered plus an overview of vulnerable groups of children and factors that can affect progress. Audits that support reflection of inclusive practice and provision will be provided. This training fully aligns with the revised Early Years Foundation Stage. £52 per place.
- Wednesday 2 November 9.30am to 3.00pm (EYT 22/1906).
Making a difference to disadvantage (Webinar): is suitable for any role. A key priority in the revised Early Years Foundation Stage is to narrow the gap between children who are disadvantaged and the rest. This informative and thought-provoking course considers what disadvantage is and the impact it has on outcomes. It encompasses what to do and what to provide to achieve ongoing high quality, inclusive practice which makes a genuine difference to tackling disadvantage. £52 per place.
- Thursday 3 November 9.30am to 3.00pm (EYT 22/1893).
To book, search for the course code on the Learning and Development Gateway. If you have any questions, please email early.years.training@westsussex.gov.uk.
Home Learning Environment Campaign launched
Better Health Start for Life and the Department for Education have launched a new campaign to encourage parents and carers to chat, play and read more with their children to develop their communication, language and literacy skills before starting school.
Some of the most disadvantaged children in the UK start school developmentally months behind their peers and the gap can grow through their school years. Children with poor vocabulary skills at age 5 may be up to twice as likely to be unemployed in their 30s. This issue has further increased during the pandemic, with a rise in the number of children starting school with language skills poorer than would have been expected previously.
They want to empower parents to do more learning and play activities with their children and help overcome the key barriers they face, such as lack of time, confidence, and not knowing what type of activities they should be doing. These activities take little time, can happen anywhere and can easily be interwoven with daily tasks.
A full range of digital and downloadable resources to help support the campaign, will be available on the Campaign Resource Centre soon. We would encourage you to sign up and see how you can make best use of these materials to support parents and their children.
New blog on the Early Years Experts and Mentors Programme
Foundation Years is pleased to share with you the latest blog from the Department for Education on the Early Years Experts and Mentors Programme. Debbie Gillibrand, an Early Years Manager from Leyland St James Nursery, looks at the impact of COVID-19 on early years practice, why she decided to apply to take part in the programme and her experiences of supporting settings in her region. You can read the blog here.
If you would like to take part in the Experts and Mentors in the future, please email your Setting Support mailbox.
- W/C 17 OCT - Autumn actuals payment expected
- 31 DEC - Sufficiency for Autumn term deadline
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)
-
Practice support (EYFS, Diversity and Inclusion, health and wellbeing, transitions, legislation, regulation and safeguarding)
-
Supporting families in your childcare setting (includes CLaWBA, integrated reviews)
-
Tools for schools and settings (supporting the inclusion of all children in early years)
-
Business support (Free Entitlement, marketing, finance, recruitment, advertising)
- Training and qualifications
-
Network meetings/events (Learning and development, INCO SENCO, business and welfare)
-
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.
-
#235 (Starting school applications; Ofsted roadshows; new foundation years vodcast and blog; autumn term network meetings; updated contact details for SAT EY SEND transition teachers)
-
#234 (Safeguarding focus: safer recruitment - guidance on online searches of shortlisted candidates; childcare survey deadline approaching; committee run provision; introduction to specialist advisory teachers - EY SEND transitions; Ofsted education recovery series; respiratory outbreaks and prevention and control webinar; pre-school immunisations; HAF summer feedback)
-
#233 (Childcare needs survey update; autumn FE actuals - deadline this Friday; tax-free childcare search route now live; early years stronger practice hubs advisory group; updated FAQs and webinar recording; updated quality improvement criteria; virtual reality demonstrations)
-
#232 (Increase in Scarlet Fever; autumn term FE actuals claim; setting review meetings; early years inclusion support plan; HAF Christmas 2022 expressions of interest now open; government consultations final reminder; childcare needs survey; Flu immunisation for early years; food poverty a growing concern)
-
#231 (Government consultations - time is running out; autumn term FE actuals claims; DAF and EYPP autumn claims; starting school questionnaire and school applications; BookTrust update; childcare survey; EY stronger practice hubs webinar; EYFS reforms: one year on, lessons learned and future direction)
| 
