| As a member of the Best Start Partnership, the Jersey Child Care Trust compiles and distributes news, information and research (local and international) to all those in Jersey who want to make a difference for children. |
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| Following a successful pilot and subsequent feasibility study, the three-year integrated reviews will be a universal offer for all three-year-olds in Jersey from January 2025. As with the feasibility study, all supply / backfill costs will be covered and will be sent directly to settings. In addition, all children will receive a ‘Me at Three’ box during the meeting. What are the three-year integrated reviews? It is widely acknowledged that a child’s early years are critical to achieving good outcomes. The five early years health development contacts that constitute the Healthy Child Programme (HCP) in Jersey have an important role to play in supporting the development of children from antenatal to school entry within Health Visiting and school age children for the School Nurse service.Prior to the roll out of the three-year integrated reviews, the final health development pre-school contact in Jersey takes place when children are 2 – 2½ years old. Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQs) data from this contact in 2023 showed that 17 % of children were not developing typically in at least one of the five key developmental areas. Even though children who are delayed in their development at 2 – 2½ are being followed up with interventions, referrals, and monitoring, 2023 data reveals that by the time children are entering Reception, 24% are not reaching age related expectations in at least one of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) ‘prime areas’ of learning. The increase in the percentage of children behind on their development at age 3 – 4 is a significant concern as it indicates that more children are falling behind in key areas before reaching statutory school age. Through the three-year integrated reviews, we can offer an additional point of contact and developmental review at age 3-4, within the nursery setting. During this review, parents/carers meet with the child’s class Teacher or Key Worker, and with a member of the Family Nursing and Home Care team. The discussion is supported by an ASQ completed by parents, knowledge from the nursery staff about the child within the setting and the knowledge that the FNHC team bring with them. Outcomes of these discussions might be referrals to services or agencies (with parental permission), formal or informal support plans, for example, around toilet learning or dummy / bottle usage to be shared between home and school or general verbal advice, around topics of the parents/ school’s request. It is also an opportunity to reassure and celebrate the progress and developments their child has made. Through working together and bringing services and parents together around a child, we have shown through both the pilot and the feasibility study that the benefits are numerous. Feedback from parents and staff: “I found it useful to establish what is needed for each child and where they can be signposted for certain needs/concerns” (Practitioner)“This is a crucial developmental stage for children and where steps taken at this stage can make a difference to the child’s lifelong learning, putting the building blocks in at this early point in time” (Practitioner)“I think it is a beneficial process considering there are no other developmental checks beyond 2 over here” (Parent)“I hope when my youngest turns 3 these development reviews are implemented, and other parents benefit from this check- in” (Parent) What happens in the weeks leading up to the review? After Family Nursing and Home Care (FNHC) make contact with you to arrange dates and times for them to visit, parents will receive a letter with details about their appointment date and time, as well as information about the process, what to bring to the meeting, and the ASQs, relevant to their child’s age. What happens on the day? Family Nursing and Home Care will require a quiet room, to accommodate a member of their team, parents, and child, for the review to take place in. A member of Nursery staff, either the child’s class teacher or keyworker will need to be available for the duration of all the meetings, so that they can attend and provide crucial information about their knowledge and experience of the child. All backfill / supply costs will be paid to allow this to take place. Parents will arrive at their allocated time, with the documentation as asked for in the letter that was sent home to them and the integrated review will take place. After the meeting, and with agreement from parents, any referrals will be made to services as needed by FNHC, and any informal plans around toilet learning etc will be agreed and shared with the school/setting/parents. When will the children from my nursery be offered the three-year integrated review? Family Nursing and Home Care have started to make contact with nurseries to arrange their three-year integrated reviews. These will begin taking place in January 2025. What is included in the ‘Me at Three’ resource box and when do I give these out? We will be delivering all Me at Three resource boxes in the weeks leading up to the three-year integrated review taking place within your setting. We ask that you do not give these out to the children until FNHC carry out the meetings, at which time, they will hand these out to the children and parents at the end of their meeting. The Me at Three box contains two core books for every child, mark making equipment, information for parents about supporting their child’s communication and language development, a bookmark from 50 Things to do Before You’re Five, a leaflet about the Best Start Partnership, a leaflet from Public Health and a leaflet about the HENRY programme from Family Nursing and Home Care. The box itself was designed by our competition winner, Edward from St Mary’s school and provides an opportunity for children to mark make, as well as a special place to keep their books. |
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| Keep on Talking! As we continue to promote communication and language opportunities across the Early Years sector, our quality development and supportive moderation visits over the past few weeks have focussed specifically on this. Together we have discussed how tuning into children and talking with them about their interests will ensure conversations are meaningful and enjoyable for all. We have also talked about how sharing our love of books with children, demonstrating to them, the joy and pleasure we all get from ‘booksnuggling’. We have jointly looked at our book areas making sure they are cosy places that children want to spend time in. We are delighted to see the core books are being displayed, and that there is a variety of non-fiction and fiction books, with props and puppets that allow children to re tell their favourite tales. We have discussed placing books throughout our environments that support learning and development throughout the areas of continuous provision, or in the words of Gregg Bottrill our ‘learning landscape’. We have now collected the Autumn ‘on entry’ data from our pre-schools, Nursery and Reception classes, this is a huge undertaking, and we would like to thank you all, as well as our colleagues who support us with this. Rightly so we continue to place value and importance on children’s well-being and involvement, as well as building positive relationships with children and their families; to further support children feeling confident, safe and happy in our settings. Having discussions with you during our visits around these important processes, as well as meeting the children in your settings is a great privilege, one that we really appreciate. We would like to acknowledge the commitment of all practitioners and teachers in the sector thank you for your hard work and on-going commitment. Wishing you all a merry and peaceful Christmas. Julie and Claire (Quality Development, CEYS) |
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| Unlocking Creativity with Clay ‘Children need to have the opportunity to express their thoughts, feelings and xperiences in both two and three- dimensions. From a Froebelian perspective, clay is an important material for children to have access to which does not just support their creative development but contributes to all areas of learning.’ (Exploring Clay, Lucy Parker, The Froebel Trust) It was great to see so many of you of you at the recent training session “Unlocking Creativity with Clay” feedback has been really positive, and it has been rewarding to have received photos of the work taking place back in settings. Practitioners learned simple clay techniques and discovered creative ways to let children explore this natural medium at their own pace. The session emphasised hands-on learning and sensory experiences, leaving participants inspired and ready to share these ideas with children back in their settings. We really hope you left with some practical skills and a renewed enthusiasm for using clay. Please see the link here Layout 1 for the pamphlet that was shared ‘Exploring Clay’. |
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| We are delighted to have taken part in the Jersey Christmas Tree Festival for the first time this year. Showcasing the app, 50 Things to Do Before You’re Five, we have created a tree that celebrates the pop ups that we have done this year, feedback from parents, as well as an opportunity for parents to provide further feedback on the day. Usual tree decorations had a 50Things twist, with some resources that you might expect to use in some of the50 activities available on the app, made their way into the tree. 50 Things to Do Before You’re Five provides 50 fun, low cost/no cost activity ideas to support children’s learning and development. The app remains free and open to all via the app store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/50-things-before-youre-five/id1386729093 and is suitable for use in the home environment, schools and settings |
 Please direct parents, carers, and fellow practitioners to the Best Start website: https://beststart.je/ as a source of reliable information for parents, carers and practitioners of 0-5year olds in Jersey. We are uploading more content to this site each month, and continue to take feedback from parents, carers, and practitioners about what they would like to see on there. Please do get in touch with us at beststart@gov.je if there is anything that you would like to see on the website. We have recently created a Quality Development and Moderation section (you can search either of these words in the search bar to find this) to house the Quality Development and Moderation handbook for schools and settings on behalf of the Childcare and Early Years Service. |
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| Revealed: Two thirds of poorest families miss out on childcare, as government urged to ‘think differently’New analysis reveals English local authorities with lowest numbers of childcare places, with Walsall ranked worst: see map here At current rate of decline, there will be no childminders left by 2033, warn IPPR and Save the Children Government must ensure deprived and rural areas aren’t left behind in forthcoming childcare expansion, charities urge New analysis on the quality and quantity of childcare provision in England has revealed that the massive expansion of free childcare currently underway is at risk of not delivering for poorer families, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Save the Children. Amongst the poorest fifth of parents with young children, only a third (36 per cent) use formal childcare, compared to double that (73 per cent) of the highest earning households. Analysis by IPPR shows that use of formal childcare is highly defined by class. Over two-thirds of parents of young children who work in professional jobs such as lawyers, doctors and architects use it, compared to less than half of parents in elementary occupations such as cleaners, care workers and hairdressers. Further analysis by the think tank of local access to private and voluntary nurseries as well as childminders – who deliver nearly all provision for children under 3 – finds significant variation in access to childcare within a reasonable travel time by local authority, with deprived and rural areas the worst off. The more deprived or more rural a local area is, the fewer and lower-quality childcare options families tend to have. The most deprived areas have 32 per cent fewer places per child and 25 per cent fewer good (according to OFSTED) places compared to the most affluent areas. Rural areas have 31 per cent fewer places and 29 per cent fewer good places compared to inner cities and town centers. For example, three in four children in Walsall live in areas that have some of the worst access to childcare in England. Differences in levels of access cannot be fully explained by the number of households who are in-work with children.There are also huge regional and local variations. For example, parts of the North-East have five times the average ratio of childcare places to children. However, other parts of the same Combined Authority are amongst the least well served in the country. Part of this problem is driven by the falling numbers of childminders. At the current rate – a drop of around 3,000 childminders per year – there may be none left by 2033. However, another issue is the lack of places in school-based nurseries. Whilst the number of schools offering nursery provision has grown since 2018, the headcount of children in primary school nurseries has reduced by 14 per cent (the equivalent of 42,000 children) between 2015/16 and 2023/24.This decline has been most stark in the more economically disadvantaged local authorities and may reflect schools offering full-time entitlement places to children from working families at the expense of part-time universal places for those who don’t qualify. IPPR and Save the Children are proposing a series of policies to boost England’s diverse market of 56,000 childcare providers, including by: Establishing new not-for-profit nursery trusts to rival private equity backed for-profit chains, with the aim of helping smaller childcare providers with business support, best practice and achieve the same economies of scale as larger groups. Reinvigorating the role of local authorities including by pooling funding to secure new childcare in the areas of greatest need and more actively brokering the new schools-based nursery expansion. Growing and supporting the supply of childminders by developing a new long-term national strategy which sees them paid monthly to deliver funded entitlements and explores a new childminder friendly national digital platform. Increasing funding for deprived areas and children through raising the Early Years Pupil Premium and increasing weighting for Additional Need in the national formula. Reforming the SEND funding system, giving greater recognition to emerging needs in early years within mainstream funding. |
| You can download the full report here |
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| Early Words Matter Conference 2025 – 19th March 2025 This early years conference will explore the latest research in the sector, featuring insights from expert speakers, plus networking opportunities. Confirmed speakers:Dr Stella Louis Dr Louis is an early years consultant, trainer and author. Her publications include Observing Children in Early Childhood (Sage Publications, 2022) and, with Hannah Betteridge, Lets Talk About Race in the Early Years (Routledge, 2024). Dr Louis leads a small team of Froebelian traveling tutors and has worked both in the United Kingdom and internationally to develop a Froebelian approach to teaching and learning. Dr Louis will discuss schemas, and how children use play as a starting point to extend their schematic explorations. Greg Bottrill Greg is an experienced early years practitioner and consultant, and author of Can I Go And Play Now? (Sage Publications, 2022), School and the Magic of Children (Sage Publications, 2020) and Love Letters To Play (Sage Publications, 2022). Greg advocates for children being co-creators of their education, and runs an extensive range of workshops designed to help settings to improve their provision. Greg will explore the power of the words we use in early years, and how they might be used to enrich communication. Dr Dan Wuori With more than 30 years of early years leadership, Dr Wuori is the founder and president of Early Childhood Policy Solutions, a U.S.-based public policy consultancy, and has worked alongside governors and state legislators to improve early years policy across the United States. He is the author of The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong About Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do About It (Teachers College Press, 2024), and is known for his innovative use of social media to provide joyful and informative video footage of children’s learning and development. Dr Wuori will outline the three simple truths of early development, referred to in Daycare Myths and drawn from decades of scientific research, and explore their implications for children, families, and the UK’s long-term prosperity. He will call on parents, professionals, and elected leaders to revisit their decision making in accordance with these critical lessons. |
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