Dear Colleagues,
Updates from the Team
Inclusion Stories
A great success story around the integrated 2 year old review for a child at Brambles childcare.
Early Years Inclusion Drop in session
From September you will have the opportunity to ask general questions, seek wider support and network with others through a half termly drop-in session. Please see attached poster for further information.
Code Validation
Ahead of the summer holidays, we just wanted to remind providers to ensure that codes are validated ahead of a child taking up a place in the autumn term, as set out in the statutory guidance. This is particularly important for children taking up a place for the first time from September. Validating codes ahead of the term can ensure that parents have the confidence to take up a place and understand their monthly childcare costs, as well as providing an early indication of whether parents can find a place or if there are potential sufficiency issues. Also enabling you to claim an estimated payment, number of codes validated must match number of children claimed.
Updated EYFS documents
The DfE has now published the updated Early Years Foundation Stage statutory guidance documents for both group providers and childminders ahead of summer break. The documents can be found here. The new documents will come into effect from September 1st.
The early years team will be hosting some EYFS workshops in the autumn term to look at what the new statutory guidance means for providers – hold dates for these will be shared this week so keep your eyes peeled for correspondence from your locality team.
Updates from Partners
Speech and Language Therapy telephone number change
Please find information attached.
Child Safety and Accident Prevention
Shared on behalf of the NCC Child safety reference group.
In preparation for the summer holidays, Balance North East have refreshed their ‘What’s the Harm?’ campaign toolkit for summer 2025. The campaign aims to support efforts to improve children’s health and wellbeing and promote community safety, by reducing underage access to alcohol. The messaging is targeted at parents and carers rather than children. Please see attached for further information.
Counting Collections with the Great North Stronger Practice Hub
Counting Collections is a programme created by researchers at the University of Nottingham which fits into everyday provision in nursery (PVI settings with 3- and 4-year-olds) and school Reception classes. It can be adapted to work with any existing schemes or approaches.
What the programme includes :
– A free class counting library of resources. This includes 50 colour-coded collections (boxes of different numbers of objects) and a set of tools (5 and 10 frames, pots, trays and number tracks and lines) for counting. The library is worth £770 and is delivered to the school/setting.
– Five professional development sessions for a lead practitioner (one day in person and four half-days online). The practitioner joins a cohort of 30 local practitioners who attend sessions together across the year.
– Learning trajectory documents to support understanding of progression in four areas of number: counting, subitising, comparison and composition.
– Access to Counting Collections Online professional learning environment which includes short videos, explanations and resources, as well as space to share ideas.
To Register your interest in this programme, please complete the form here: Expression of Interest for Counting Collections
