Newsletter for Early Years and Childcare providers in West Sussex
#21/2025 - Wednesday 28 May 2025
This week's newsletter includes:
- Safeguarding Focus - Pan Sussex half day conference - Understanding safeguarding children in a digital age
- Advanced warning - Online Provider Portal downtime
- Summer term Post Headcount Exceptional Payment (PHEP) flexibility for eligible working families of children aged 9 months to 2 years old
- Updating your staff contact information
- New Department for Education (DfE) newsletter for early years providers
- Anti-Racist Education Conference
- Allergy support for schools and early years providers
- New Ofsted blog post
- Early Years Training – funding for one free paediatric first aid training per setting
Difficulty viewing this bulletin? Click here to view in your browser.
Latest Ofsted news and updates here.
Pan Sussex half day conference - Understanding safeguarding children in a digital age
The West Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership (SCP) is working in collaboration with the Brighton and Hove SCP and East Sussex SCP to deliver an online safeguarding conference. The event will take place on Wednesday 25 June 9.00am to 1.30pm. It is free to attend and available to all practitioners (including volunteers and foster carers) who work with children and young people across Sussex.
The conference will help you develop your knowledge of online dangers and understand how to safeguard children in a digital age. It will consist of four bitesize webinars, delivered by a subject specialist, exploring different issues that children face online.
Practitioners can choose to attend one, two or more webinars. Attendees will also receive an electronic resource pack after the event to support your work with children and young people around this often challenging topic. You can view the webinar descriptions and book your place here.
|
Please be advised that the Online Provider Portal will be unavailable from 12.30pm on Friday 6 June for viewing and submitting forms, but you can still access the funding area.
The OPP will be completely unavailable on Monday 9 June until 5.00pm. This is due to essential maintenance that is taking place. Please note, parents and carers will not be able to submit 2 year old Local Authority Issued Early Years Funded Entitlement applications and our Family Information Service website will also be unavailable to the public.
The Department for Education are asking local authorities to report the summer term take up of the 9 month and 2 year old Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families for summer and autumn term 2025. The summer data collection will be taken in the week commencing 9 June 2025. Therefore, this additional data count for the summer term will include the following funded children:
- 9 month plus and 2 year old EYFE for Working Families claims submitted via actuals (based on attendance at headcount).
- 9 month plus and 2 year old EYFE for Working Families claims submitted via the PHEP process (for children starting at a provider from 12 May to 13 June 2025).
As this will inform adjustments to our funding allocation for summer 2025, West Sussex County Council has the flexibility to approve any PHEP requests for children eligible for the 9 month plus EYFE and 2 year old EYFE for Working Families, who wish to access an EYFE for Working Families place from 12 May, up to and including 13 June 2025. These PHEPs will be accepted without the need for an exceptional reason*.
*Please note, approval is subject to a valid EYFE for Working Families eligibility code for the summer term, and our usual checks.
The online PHEP request form can be found on our web page. PHEPs for the above children must be submitted to us no later than Wednesday 18 June 2025. For 9 month plus and 2 year old children starting an EYFE for Working Families funded place after 13 June 2025, normal requirements will apply and a child must have an exceptional reason to start post headcount.
We hold information on all Ofsted-registered childcare providers in our secure database. To support our processes and ensure effective communication, it is also important that we hold up-to-date information for certain key staff within early years and childcare settings.
This includes:
- the main contact for your setting – this could be the owner, setting manager, business manager, or appropriate staff member who should receive essential communications,
- the setting manager – if different from the main contact,
- staff who require Online Provider Portal accounts – these are staff members who need access to complete tasks such as termly update forms, sufficiency returns, or Early Years Funded Entitlement submissions, and
- Designated Safeguarding Lead(s) – these details are essential, especially for initiatives such as Operation Encompass.
We do not need to hold the information of all the staff you employ.
When you need to add, remove or update any staff information you will need to complete a staff update form on the Online Provider Portal. Information on how to do this can be found on our staff changes web page. If you are unsure who is currently listed on our database, you can use the how to view your current staff list help guide to assist you in checking and updating your records.
Keeping this information up to date and accurate ensures your setting receives key updates and can access relevant systems and services when needed.
The DfE is launching a new newsletter in early June. It will share the latest announcements, updates, and news about early years education reforms and how the department is supporting the childcare expansion.
To sign up, click the ‘Sign up to receive our provider email updates’ tile and enter your details.
The Brighton and Hove Anti-Racist Education Conference on 20 June has been opened up to schools and education settings in East and West Sussex. The event will be covering the Early Years Foundation Stage age phase and there will be an early years specific workshop. For more information, please read this flyer.
Allergy School offers free, practical resources to help practitioners create inclusive and safe environments for children with food allergies. Their resources are aimed at empowering educators to protect every child and foster confidence and understanding among children, ensuring those with food allergies feel supported. The website includes a section for 3 to 5 year olds which you can access by setting up a free account here.
A new post, “Applying to register with Ofsted: what you need to know” has just been published on the Ofsted: early years blog. You can read the post here.
The Early Years Foundation Stage Safeguarding Reforms, active from September 2025, require settings to monitor children whilst eating, stating; “whilst children are eating there should always be a member of staff in the room with a valid paediatric first aid certificate.”
To support you with this change, we are funding one free paediatric first aid training place for:
- schools with Year R
- wraparound care providers who provide food and have Year R children on role
- Ofsted-registered early years nurseries, pre-schools, and childminders.
This certified training is fully compliant with Ofsted requirements and must be renewed every three years. We offer a blended model, with day one completed online and day two, which is face to face at a venue. Please note, once the login code for the online part of the training has been accessed, we are unable to change the name on the booking.
Important information:
- If you are a Private, Voluntary or Independent setting who provides wraparound care and/or a nursery on the school's site that you serve, you can access a free place.
- If you are a school run wraparound care provider and/or nursery, please contact us to discuss how many places you qualify for.
To book your place, please select one of the dates listed on the West Sussex Services for Education booking portal, and the free space will be automatically applied to your first booking. If you would like to book additional places, they can be purchased at the normal price and this will be automatically applied. If you have any questions, please email early.years.training@westsussex.gov.uk.
Useful information
- 30 May - Deadline for Inclusion Funding action plan submissions
- w/c 9 June - summer term actuals payments due
- 30 June to 15 August - portal open for autumn term estimates
- 29 August - summer term Sufficiency deadline
- 1 September to 26 September - portal open for autumn term actuals
- 18 September - autumn term headcount day
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.
 |
|
We’re committed to providing excellent support to all providers we engage with. Please take a moment to complete our Early Years and Childcare Provider Feedback Survey and let us know about your experiences. Your feedback will help us improve our service and better support settings like yours. You can visit the web page or scan the QR code. |
-
#20/2025 (Impact of childcare expansion survey; Jobs in Early Years and Childcare Newsletter; Children, Young People and Learning SEND and Inclusion Newsletter; West Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership - free training; Fire Safety Training ;Early Years Training)
-
#19/2025 (Business Focus - explore our business support web pages for settings; Summer term Early Years Funded Entitlement actuals – deadline this Friday; Right From The Start Early Years survey; Childminding Week; Early Years Funded Entitlements for Working Families - 30 hours applications open now; New Ofsted research report; Wraparound settings - inclusive provision; Fully funded Early Years SENCO training - apply now; Department for Education launches new consultation on floor space requirements; Early Years Training)
-
#18/2025 (Summer term 2025 actuals claims - action required; Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families codes – new online request for support for; Termly Provider Update; Childcare Expansion Capital Grant funding - deadline approaching; Early Language Support for Every Child - Free Event; National Wraparound Childcare Programme Grant Funding; National Professional Qualification (NPQ) Autumn 2025 update; West Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership (WSSCP) free training, Early Years Training)
-
#17/2025 (New nutrition guidance from the Department for Education; World Hand Hygiene Day 2025; Dadpad - New app launch event; Reminder to sign up to Operation Encompass; Help parents save money on childcare costs; Early Years Training)
-
#16/2025 (Safeguarding Focus - Use of socket covers; Final reminder - Ofsted consultation on inspections; Spring term 2025 actuals claims - actioned required)
Early Years and Childcare newsletter web page.
|
