Newsletter for Early Years and Childcare providers in West Sussex
#13/2024 - Wednesday 27 March 2024
This week's newsletter includes:
- High volume of calls and emails
- Final reminder to check Early Years Funded Entitlement codes
- Childcare Expansion Provider Forum update
- Are parents/carers in your setting confused about the new childcare offers?
- Processing Education Health and Care needs assessments
- Department for Education Provider Roadshows - postponed
- Review of the Ordinarily Available Inclusive Practice guide
- Bilingual support for Chagossian families
- Ofsted updates
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The Family Information Service and Early Years Funding team are currently experiencing a high number of calls and emails, which means we may take longer than usual to respond to your query.
If you have already called, and a call back has been set for you, or emailed please be reassured a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible. We aim to respond to your query within ten working days. If you have not had a response within the ten working days, please do not attempt to call or email with the same query, as this may contribute to longer processing times for customer queries.
If you have been waiting longer than ten working days and have not received confirmation that we are looking into your query, please contact us with your initial query and that you are yet to receive a response.
We are doing our best to reply to all customer queries as soon as possible and we thank you for your patience.
We strongly encourage you to check any EYFE eligibility codes as soon as possible and before Summer Term actuals open. If you carry out the check and a code is not valid, you will be able to raise any code issues with the parent prior to the child starting their EYFE hours with you. This also allows parents to take appropriate action before the 31 March deadline for the Summer Term 2024. West Sussex County Council can only fund valid codes and if you wait until Summer Term actuals are open to validate the code, this will be too late. The Department for Education have told us they are using the code validation data to help determine local sufficiency.
Please use the eligibility checker on the Online Provider Portal to check EYFE eligibility codes for:
- 2 year old EYFE for working families, and
- 3 and 4 year old Extended EYFE (30 hours).
The help guide will support you in locating the checker and provides important guidance to help you identify if a code is valid for the Summer Term or not.
If, after viewing the guidance you have any questions, please email free.entitlement@westsussex.gov.uk. In order for us to deal with your query effectively, please ensure that you include the following details in your email:
- Child's name
- Child's Date of Birth
- Eligibility code
- Parent's name
- Parent's National Insurance number
Last week the forum met to discuss the current challenges and opportunities relating to the expansion. At a previous meeting the challenges around recruitment and retention were discussed and as a result, at this meeting we were joined by the Partnership Manager and Employment Lead from Jobcentre Plus (JCP). Forum members shared their views and experiences of recruitment and advertising jobs, including the difficulty in finding suitable candidates. You can find more information on how JCP can help your business in the employer pack. JCP will continue to work with the forum to understand how they can better support the early years and childcare sector.
The forum were also given a sneak peek at the flyer you will read about in the next article below. Their feedback in January helped shape the content and wording you will see on the final product. We want to extend a huge thank you to all the forum members for their valuable input.
We have developed a web page for parents and carers that explains the government’s expansion of the Early Years Funded Entitlements (EYFE) for working parents. You can share this QR code with parents which will direct them to www.westsussex.gov.uk/ExpansionOfChildcare.
We will soon be posting hard copies of the Expansion of Childcare flyer to all settings. You do not need to contact us to order these, as we will send them to you automatically. These flyers can be used alongside the current Free Entitlement (FE) leaflet to help parents understand the new offers, whilst we update the FE leaflet to reflect the new EYFE offers. If you receive the flyers but require more copies, please email family.info.service@westsussex.gov.uk.
When completing a staff update form for the main contact you have the option to select whether postal correspondence is sent to the setting address or the main contact's address (which could be a home address if inputted on the staff update form). If you have chosen for postal correspondence to be sent to the main contact, the flyers will be distributed to the address we have recorded for them on our system. The flyers have already been distributed by post, so we are unable to make any amends to postal addresses.
The Special Educational Needs Assessment Team (SENAT) are working hard to ensure children and young people who require statutory, or specialist help receive the right support at the right time.
During the week of Monday 15 April to Friday 19 April, the SENAT will be working through outstanding Education Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments. During this period, they will monitor urgent enquires through a dedicated inbox to determine if immediate support is needed by parent/carers, providers or schools. Details of the inbox will be shared via the SENAT web page from Monday 15 April.
In newsletter 11/2024 we shared details of the Provider Roadshows hosted by the DfE. Due to unforeseen circumstances the DfE South East Provider Regional Roadshow planned for 28 March 2024 has been postponed. It will now take place on the 9 May 2024. The DfE apologise for needing to re-arrange the event.
If you are interested in attending the event, we will share details on how to register for the new date via this weekly newsletter.
Would you like to be involved in reviewing the OAIP guide? This version of OAIP was produced in 2021 and we recognise that thinking and practice evolves over time, therefore we would like to gain feedback and expert knowledge from Early Years Providers that work with children within West Sussex.
We will be reviewing Section Two Annex: Ordinarily Available Inclusive Support for the Early Years Foundation Stage (birth to 5 years). We have planned two sessions to review the document as follows:
- Monday 29 April - Horsham Nursery, RH13 5UT - 9.30am to 11.30am
- Thursday 2 May - online via Microsoft Teams - 1.00pm to 3.00pm
If you would like to attend one of the review sessions, please email Jessica.bubb@westsussex.gov.uk.
The West Sussex Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service (EMTAS) has increased the capacity of their Mauritian Creole-speaking Bilingual Liaison Officer. This is in response to more Chagossian families currently arriving in West Sussex, particularly in Crawley. The Bilingual Liaison Officer is therefore more available to support families with applications for school spaces, as well as other home-school liaison issues related to children’s education.
If you would like to discuss a child in your setting and receive support from EMTAS to plan for their transition to primary school, please email emat@westsussex.gov.uk.
Ofsted have recently updated certain web pages and guides.
Web pages:
Guides:
These guides now include a section about Ofsted inspect and report on safeguarding. They also provide more clarity about how often Ofsted inspect and talking to the inspector during the inspection.
Useful information
- W/C 01 Apr - Summer term estimate payments due
- 12 Apr - Spring term Sufficiency deadline
- 15 Apr - Portal opens for Summer term actuals
- 02 May - Headcount day
- 10 May - Portal closed for Summer term actuals
- 31 May - Inclusion funding deadline for Autumn term
- W/C 03 Jun - Summer term actuals payments due
We have a range of online training available for you to access for your staff to ensure they have the most up to date information to support them in their role:
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.
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 EYCA team using the following email addresses:
Where there are not clearly evidenced reasons why the setting had no option but to close, there could be implications for funding received as per the government guidance.
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#12/2024 (Contacting the Local Authority Designated Officer; Warning - Online Provider Portal downtime; Early Years Funded Entitlement eligibility codes - Summer Term deadline; New funding policy and invoice templates available; Childminder consultation; Early Years Training)
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#11/2024 (Business focus - Funding for apprentices in your setting; Warning - Online Provider Portal downtime; Outcomes Framework for children and young people - parent/carer survey; Department for Education Provider Roadshows; Transition Events 2024; Department for Education COVID recovery programme; Jobcentre plus - support with recruitment; SEND and Inclusion newsletter - March 2024; Fraud guide for businesses)
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#10/2024 (Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for working families – reminding parents to check and reconfirm their codes; Checking Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) codes; Advanced Warning - Online Provider Portal downtime; Network meeting presentations; New Ofsted early years blog post - Ofsted priorities for the early years sector; Early Years Training; Lose weight for free)
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#09/2024 (Safeguarding focus - Free county lines video and resource pack; Early Years Funded Entitlement - Provider Declaration; Online Provider Portal downtime; Ofsted inspections - Support from the Early Years and Childcare team; New resource to support practitioners with Early Years Foundation Stage assessment; Kent Early Years Stronger Practice Hub newsletter - February 2024; Early Years Training)
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#08/2024 (Business focus - Things to think about when making changes to your Ofsted registration; Early Years Funded Entitlement - Spring Term payments; Early Years and Childcare heroes - Do you know someone who deserve an Honour?; Ofsted curriculum roadshows in West Sussex; Foundation Years Live - March events; Kent Early Years Strong Practice Hub webinar recordings - Maths and Self-regulation; Early Years Training)
Early Years and Childcare newsletter web page.
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