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Welcome to the Early Years eNewsletter, bringing you the latest local and national early years sector news as well as information on training, funding and policy.
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WellComm
In Oxfordshire, we are prioritising children’s early language development as part of our school readiness strategy. Every nursery setting in Oxfordshire has a copy of WellComm in order to screen every child. Thank you for your feedback about WellComm via the recent questionnaire sent to all settings. If you have not responded – please do so.
Please click here to respond to the WellComm questionnaire. Please answer honestly so that we can support your needs.
More FREE training is available next term. Click here to access. There are still spaces available next Tuesday 10 May 2022 7-8pm via Teams.
Standalone training from GL assessment is also available here |
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Foundation Years Survey
On behalf of the Department for Education (DfE) Foundation Years have launched a survey on all things Foundation Years.
Foundation Years want to make the information they provide as useful as possible to the early years community. The survey will be open until Monday 16 May.
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Ofsted 5 Year Strategy
Ofsted has set out its corporate strategy, with a summary of their core values, strategic approaches, areas of work and evaluation metrics. In this Ofsted explain how they will develop the evidence base about early years education, including curriculum and pedagogy.
Ofsted strategy 2022 to 2027 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
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Infection Control
Health protection in education and childcare settings - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
UKHSA continue to keep us up to date with information about infectious diseases. This includes information to help manage gastro-intestinal outbreaks with further clarification on what is deemed to be an outbreak or increase in cases which should trigger a call to the Health Protection Teams for advice and support.
There are 3 posters available at Infectious diseases: schools and other childcare settings - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) that summarise some of the health protection guidance for education and childcare settings.
We would like to remind you that there is no longer a requirement to inform OCC of COVID-19 cases in your setting. However, if you wish to speak to a member of the team for advice please email Educationcovid19@oxfordshire.gov.uk and provide a direct phone number if you would like a telephone conversation.
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Increase in scarlet fever and chicken pox
There has been an increase in the number of scarlet fever and chickenpox outbreaks linked to nurseries and primary schools reported to UKHSA Health Protection Teams since the beginning of March 2022, including some where both infections are co-circulating.
In schools and nurseries, it is recognised that infections can be spread through direct physical contact between children and staff and through shared contact with surfaces such as table tops, taps, toys and handles.
As per national Guidance on Infection Control in Schools and other Child Care Settings, children and adults with suspected scarlet fever should be excluded from nursery, school, or work for 24 hours after the commencement of appropriate antibiotic treatment. Good hygiene practice such as hand washing remains the most important step in preventing and controlling spread of infection.
If you suspect an outbreak at your school or early years setting contact your Health Protection Team on 0344 225 3861 for advice.
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Message from Health Visiting Team
Please read the following update from Angela Smith HV Matron/Clinical Lead
“Our ChatHealth Parentline (07312 263081) is our new health visiting messaging service for parents and carers of children 0-4 in Oxfordshire, live since 14 February. Parents can message us about any aspect of health and development for evidence based advice and signposting and it improves accessibility to the HV service for parents. The feedback from parents has been extremely positive and it is proving a great resource for parents. We can signpost parents to great online resources including this which you may find helpful and can signpost parents to: Home :: Healthier Together (what0-18.nhs.uk). EY colleagues can still speak directly to their health visiting team. Phone your local team on the usual number and if we don’t answer straight away, leave a message with your contact details and we will get back to you. All our team contact details can be found here: LinkstoEYproviders.xlsx (live.com)
Our Community Nursery Nurses run virtual “Marvellous Me” groups at 6 months, 2 years and 3-4 years. We have added additional groups, as they are proving really popular. All groups have a focus on health promotion in a relaxed environment with other parents and opportunity to ask questions. Our nursery nurses can also pick up when a parent needs a little extra support and follow up with an individualised episode of care of needed.
In order to see more children we have started face to face group developmental reviews for children on our caseload aged 24-30 months. In May we will also start these for children aged 9-12 months. Parents have a 121 time with a health professional as well as a health promotion session with other parents led by one of our staff. The parent feedback has been really encouraging. We still work to the HV to EY communication pathway: 2 year hv to ey (oxfordshire.gov.uk).
Our nursery nurses and staff nurses are also continuing 121 episodes of care where a parent needs a little more support, for example around feeding, behaviour, toilet training, sleep, ICAN communication support. We are prioritising these more individualised support packages for vulnerable children.
We are updating our HV website so it becomes the “go-to” resource for all parents. The format is colourful, easy to access and with different sections for different ages (0-5). We’ll let you know when it is live so you can help us spread the word as well!"
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SENCO Network meetings
Early Years SENCO network meetings are open to all SENCOs working with children in early years settings, nursery classes and nursery schools. Meetings will be online via Microsoft Teams and are hosted by members of the Early Years SEN team and Early Years Advisory Team.
You are welcome to sign up for any of the meetings as they are all remote, however we have arranged for each meeting to be hosted by staff who generally work in specific areas of the county in order to try to preserve the local network experience.
Please book to attend via Step into Training Step into Training
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Date and time |
Banbury/Bicester
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Thursday May 26 6.30pm to 7.30pm |
West Oxfordshire |
Thursday June 30 3.30 to 4.30pm |
Central |
Thursday June 16 3.45 to 4.45pm |
| South |
Wednesday June 22 3.30 to 5pm.
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EYFS Profile Briefing
Over 100 Early Years colleagues joined us on 3 May for a briefing on completing the Statutory Early Years Foundation Stage Profile. If you missed this we will be repeating the session on Thursday 12 May at 3.30 – 5pm which can be booked through CPDonline/Step into Training.
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Safeguarding, Welfare and Early Help
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New Government campaign
The government has launched a campaign called 'Together we can tackle child abuse'. The resources, aimed at everyone in the community, could be used with parents and include four very short videos explaining physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and online abuse.
The simple mnemonic, ABC, is used to remind people that they should look out for changes in appearance, behaviour or communication. The webpage has a search engine to find out where to report abuse.
Tackle Child Abuse – An England wide campaign to help you recognise the signs of child abuse and neglect. Supporting you to report your concerns.
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Digital use and wellbeing
Ofcom have recently published a report which looks at media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 3-17. Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022 (ofcom.org.uk)
SWGfl have put together information, guidance and resources to help support digital wellbeing in children and young people. Digital Wellbeing | SWGfL
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Oxford Play Association
OPA are running a number of play days over the next few months. You can find out more here.
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Understanding Behaviour in the Early Years Foundation Stage
By the end of the training participants will be able to:
- Recognise what children need to feel emotionally safe and secure
- Understand what may influence undesirable behaviour
- Identify the adult’s role in supporting children to manage their own emotions successfully
- Confidently implement strategies to effectively support children’s Social and Emotional development
This is a new course being delivered face to face at Hill End on the following dates:
EY1247 Thursday 26 May 2022, 09:30 - 12:30
EY1248 Thursday 16 June 2022, 13:00 - 16:00
EY1249 Thursday 30 June 2022, 13:00 - 16:00
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Monthly Managers and Childminder Meetings
Managers meeting - Wednesday 11 May at 7- 8pm - book here
Childminder Meeting - Wednesday 19 May at 7- 8pm - book here
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Take the time to backup your CPD record and Certificates
Oxfordshire Early Years (Step into Training) and Schools & Learning both use a platform called CPD Online to publish and provide a wide range of training and CPD for schools and Early Years settings to book on to. Due to OCC procurement guidelines, we are now in the process of retendering the system provision to ensure both quality and value.
What this means for you:
At present, systems remain as usual but we are advising all schools and settings who use the training system to backup their training records and certificates.
- If a decision to change provider is made, your records will be unavailable from June 2022
How to backup
The easiest way to take a backup is to login to your CPD Online account and go to My Account and select Courses Attended:
- From here you can either:
- Take a screenshot of your CPD Diary
- Copy / Paste your CPD into a word document
- You can also download your certificates if there is a link available
We will endeavour to keep you informed of any progress in this piece of work. As it stands, we should hope to know more information mid-May 2022.
As always, thank you.
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