#35/2025 - Wednesday 3 September 2025
This week's newsletter includes:
- Business Focus - Funded course to support your childcare business
- Autumn term 2025 actuals claims - action required
- Online Provider Portal training - available to book now
- Best Start in Life replaces Childcare Choices
- Safeguarding in out-of-school settings
- Free potty training webinar for parents/carers
- Training opportunity with Ben Kingston-Hughes
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Latest Ofsted news and updates here.
What works well in your business currently? What could work better? The 'Strengthen, Grow and Future-Proof: Building Your Sustainable Childcare Business' course has been created in response to requests from settings and recommendations from advisors.
Planning and future-proofing your early years and childcare business is crucial for sustainability, quality, and growth. This workshop will take you through a review of your current business practices, with the aim to secure longevity. We strongly believe that every setting would benefit from this course.
This course has 2 parts, a short online session followed by a full day face to face session. For more information and to book your place, click on a course below:
Strengthen, Grow and Future-Proof: Building your sustainable childcare business
- Part 1 - 17 October 2025 – 9.30am to 10.30am (Online)
- Part 2 - 18 November 2025 – 9.00am to 3.30pm (County Hall North, Horsham)
Strengthen, Grown and Future-Proof: Building your sustainable childcare business
- Part 1 - 17 October 2025 – 9.30am to 10.30am (Online)
- Part 2 - 19 November 2025 – 09.00am to 3.30pm (Field Place, Worthing)
If you have any questions regarding this training, please email early.years.training@westsussex.gov.uk.
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The Online Provider Portal (OPP) is now open for you to submit your Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) claims for the 9 month plus, 2 year old and 3 and 4 year old age groups.
Key dates:
- Headcount day: Thursday 18 September 2025
- Deadline for submissions: Friday 26 September 2025 at 11.59pm
To support your claim, please see our information to consider when submitting autumn term 2025 actuals claims document.
There are 3 new features to consider when submitting your actuals:
- you can now submit up to 30 hours per week for children in the 9 month plus and 2 year old EYFE for Working Families age groups
- all Working Families hours must go in the ‘Expanded hours’ field. You must not split the hours between the ‘Hours’ and ‘Expanded hours’ field unless the child is proven to be eligible for 2 year old Local Authority (LA) issued EYFE
- for 2 year olds approved for EYFE for Working Families, you can now check if they are also eligible for 2 year old LA Issued EYFE when submitting your actuals. If approved, you can claim up to 15 hours of LA issued EYFE, plus an additional 15 hours of EYFE for Working Families.
For a step-by-step guide on how to claim, please refer to our updated How to claim child-level funding (actuals) help guides. The guidance has been updated and is split into 4 sections:
- Introductory guide - how to access the OPP actuals, and how to remove child records for children you will no longer claim for
- Existing children - how to claim for existing children
- New children - how to add children to your headcount
- Post-submission guidance - information on queries you may receive from the Early Years Funding Team following your submission, and how to view a summary of your funding claims for the term.
For providers with no outstanding queries, if you are signed up to receive 2 payments per term, you will be due to receive actuals payment for autumn term, week commencing 20 October 2025.
Providers who are signed up to receive monthly payments will be due to receive their actuals payment, week commencing 24 November 2025. For all other monthly payment dates, please see our How providers receive funding payments web page.
If there are any outstanding queries, we will contact you to resolve them.
As mentioned in the EYC Special Newsletter - Early Years Funding updates sent on 30 June 2025, we are offering free online sessions to support you in submitting actuals claims (also known as headcount claims).
In each session we will cover:
- how to add, amend and remove children from your claim
- how to determine if a Working Family code is valid for the upcoming term
- review code start dates, end dates and grace period end dates
- the changes to submissions following the entitlements expansion, particularly changes around claiming funding in the 2 year old age group
- how to include claims for Early Years Pupil Premium and Disability Access Fund.
The sessions will be held online via Microsoft Teams and are bookable through the links below.
OPP Training: Submitting actuals claims - 9 September 2025 - 10.00am to 11.30am
OPP Training: Submitting actuals claims - 10 September 2025 - 1.00pm to 2.30pm
OPP Training: Submitting actuals claims - 11 September 2025 - 6.30pm to 8.00pm
There will be time set aside for questions at the end of each session.
When applying for Early Years Funded Entitlement (EYFE) for Working Families, parents previously visited the Childcare Choices web page.
The website is now called Best Start in Life, and can be found at www.beststartinlife.gov.uk. This web page acts as a hub of information and support from pregnancy through early years and beyond, including information on childcare funding.
It is recommended you update any materials and information you routinely provide to parents, particularly around EYFE for Working Families, to replace references from Childcare Choices to the new Best Start in Life website. If you provide links in any of your materials, the below will be useful to include:
We are currently reviewing and updating our own web content to reflect this change. The link to Childcare Choices will redirect to the Best Start in Life web page for now.
For 2 year old Local Authority issued EYFE (also referred to as funded childcare for disadvantaged 2 year olds), you should continue to signpost to our Childcare and early education web pages.
Out-of-school activities play an important role in community life, with millions of children and young people regularly taking part in sports, music, arts, tutoring, and youth groups. Around 4.5 million adults support this vibrant sector by working or volunteering in these settings.
The Department for Education is calling for evidence to help shape the future safeguarding policy for the out-of-school sector. This is your chance to share your views on how we can make these types of settings as safe as possible. Help us build a clearer picture of what is working and where more support could help.
Please share your views and experience by 21 September 2025. You can do this by visiting the GOV.UK web page.
Many parents and carers will be thinking about toilet training this term, especially if their child will be starting school next year. ERIC, The Children’s Bowel and Bladder Charity, offers free advice and resources to support families with potty training.
If any parents or carers at your setting would benefit from practical potty training advice, please make them aware of a free Potty Training webinar, hosted by the Family Services team at ERIC. The webinar will be on 25 September 2025 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm via Zoom. For more information and to book a place, parents and carers should visit the ERIC website.
Following our Early Years Conference in March, one setting was so inspired by keynote speaker Ben Kingston-Hughes that they invited him to deliver a full day of training.
We are pleased to share that there are spaces available for others to join this exciting opportunity. The training will take place at William Older Playgroup, Angmering on Friday 10 October 2025 from 9.30am to 3.30pm.
Please see this flyer for full details. To book your place on this in-depth, immersive training experience, please email Sue and Lucy directly at williamolderplaygroup@gmail.com.
Useful information
- 1 September to 26 September - portal open for autumn term actuals
- 18 September - autumn term headcount day
- w/c 20 October - autumn 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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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. |
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#34/2025 (Safeguarding Focus - Neglect guidance; Congratulations to Welcome House Day Nursery; Supervised toothbrushing; Free toilet training posters and handouts; Early Years Training)
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#33/2025 (Warning - Online Provider Portal downtime; Early years expansion and budget grant payments; Early Years Funded Entitlement for Working Families eligibility codes; Increasing awareness of the 2 year health and development review; Access to urgent NHS dental care; Online Provider Portal Training; Funded Level 3 Specialist in Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator qualification; Kent and Beyond Early Years Stronger Practice Hub; Early Years Training)
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#32/2025 (Business Focus - Wrapround Programme Funding Grant; Reminder - Early Years Funded Entitlement autumn 2025 term estimates close this week; Online Provider Portal training - now available to book; Warning - Online Provider Portal downtime; It is never too late to have vaccinations; Early Years Training; Nominate a colleague for a King’s Birthday Honour)
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#31/2025 ('Activate' - a new physical activity campaign; Winners of the early years and childcare workforce review prize draw; Skills Bootcamps to boost careers and recruitment across West Sussex; Leading excellence in early years: quality first teaching - application deadline extended; Early Years Training – new date added)
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#30/2025 (Help us gather feedback on the Impact of Early Years Funded Entitlement; Changes to apprenticeship standards; Operation Encompass; Summer term network meetings; Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs; Early Years Training)
Early Years and Childcare newsletter web page.
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