Dear Colleagues,
Updates from the Team
New entitlement for 9 months+
This week please focus on asking parents of under 2’s to apply via childcare choices for their free 15 hours and bring you their codes for September starts, you need them validated via the working families checker in Wizard in order to start planning for your autumn intake. Contact your Performance Partner if you require any support.
To advertise the entitlements at your provision check out the resources section on childcare choices.
Children must be born on or before 30 November 2023 to be eligible for the new Working Parent entitlement in the Autumn term 2024.
Paediatric First Aid (PFA)
PFA certificates are sent directly from the training provider, Northern Training Partnership, following end course assessment. Certificates are sent to the email address provided at the time. PFA Certificates downloaded from the EY Passport are not valid and this feature has been disabled. Please check you have a valid certificate from NTP. They may go to your spam/Junk folders. If you have any queries please contact theresa.kirkwood@northumberland.gov.uk
Financial Incentive Pilot
To support recruitment, please include a statement about the financial incentive pilot when advertising. If you need any support with this, please contact theresa.kirkwood@northumberland.gov.uk.
Eligibility criteria:
- Returning to the sector after a minimum break of 6 months
- Employed on a Full or Part timePermanent contract
- Working directly with children 70% of contractual hours
- Apprentices who have completed their end point assessment and secured permanent full or part time employment working 70% of the time with children are also eligible
- Must be employed to work within the EYFS only, not reception or older children
- Must hold a full and relevant EY’s qualification as per the DfE Qualification Checker
- Anyone working within a voluntary capacity on a permanent full or part time basis with a view to taking up an EY qualification may be considered
If eligible, please complete the following Financial Incentive Application Form
All being well, funding will be passported to the setting after 3 months employment. Any queries please contact Theresa Kirkwood on the above email or mobile number: 07824476543
Good News
Successful Workshops
A huge thank you to our workshop hosts this year who have delivered some excellent CPD opportunities for Early Years practitioners across Northumberland. From beach schools and movement to curriculum development and creative processes, our workshops have shown a range of best practice models across a range of schools and settings. Our workshop hosts, Amanda (Goosehill Nursery), Ann (Embleton First School), Alice (Darras Hall Primary School) and Katie (Broomhill First School) have been outstanding and feedback from practitioners who attended these sessions has been wonderful:
“I attended the ‘making your environment work for your curriculum’. It was very useful, and I have incorporated quite a few suggestions into my practice. The people leading it were very helpful and it was also good to network: as I am not the Early Years lead at my school, I don’t often get the chance to get out and meet with other EY professionals. All round a good event.”
“I attended the exploring with media and materials workshop and really enjoyed it. It was lovely to go into another setting and share ideas with other practitioners. I took lots of photographs to enable me to enhance my practice and we were also given time to explore and be creative within the workshop. Clearly a lot of time and effort had been put into the preparation.”
If you or your teams would like to attend future CPD workshops then please look out for our new training directory which will be available via The School Readiness Passport from September 2024.
