Our seasonal news updates summarise the latest childcare news plus which MindingKids resources have been added or revised so you can easily keep on track and up to date.
So here we are, the summer holidays are upon us! Once again we seem to have had an early blast of sunshine in May and are now left wondering if that was it…?? Fingers crossed the sunshine returns and we can make the most of being outdoors and enjoy some summer fun.
Welcome to all our new visitors, and a BIG THANK YOU to those who have recently purchased resources or signed up for MindingKids Membership. We hope our resources and Web App are helping you with the amazing work that you do.
So What’s Happening in the world of Childcare?
Update to UK car seat laws – Backless Booster Seats
Again changes are being made to UK car seat legislation which are due to come into effect in December this year. Here is what you need to know…
Currently all children travelling in a car in the UK must use the correct car seat until they are 12 years old or 135cm tall, however stricter rules are to be introduced in December regarding the use of backless booster seats.
Many child car seat experts agree that this type of booster seat is unsuitable for very young children as they are not held securely in the seat and the adult seat belt is not guided across their small body in the correct way. Most importantly, this type of booster seat offers no protection in the event of a side-impact crash.
The new rules will mean that new backless booster seats appearing in the shops will only be approved for use for children taller than 125cm and weighing more than 22kg.
For more details and to decide whether you need to replace any of your car seats read this article from Which?
Helping Children to Prepare For School
Results from The State of Education survey suggest that nearly a third of children are not adequately prepared for starting school with many presenting with a lack of toileting, self-care and social skills or in some cases delayed speech. There are suggestions that an increase in the use of mobile technology has resulted in a generation of children who know more about operating smart phones than taking part in conversations. Find the full report from the survey here.
We as childcare professionals have a duty to support all children in our care in their development and help to prepare them for the transition to school. We should be constantly thinking about how we can encourage self-care skills such as toileting, hand washing, putting coats and shoes on, etc as well as building on social and communication skills through both group activities and one on one interaction.
If you care for children who are approaching school age perhaps you should take some time to review the things you do within your setting. Can you encourage shy, quiet children to join in more with conversation by tailoring an activity towards their interest? Can you promote self-care skills by rewarding children when they do something for themselves?
MindingKids offers the following resources to support children who are moving onto school or nursery:
and these resources for information sharing between settings to further support transition:
Communication Passport & Transition Summary
Learning & Development (Profile) Summary
Plus the new and exciting School Activity Pack is also now available!
In the North (Care Inspectorate)….
State of the Nation Report Card Published
Active Healthy Kids Scotland have published their latest report card on the physical activity and health of Scotland’s children and adolescents. The overall findings from the report card suggest that improvements need to be made to increase the overall amount of physical activity children are involved in and reduce the amount of sedentary behaviour such as watching television and playing computer games. More also needs to be done to improve children’s diets and reduce obesity however results show that children in Scotland feel generally safe within their local environment and that there is adequate provision and investment within our communities for involving children and young people in active activities.
The Active Healthy Kids Scotland Report Card 2016 is available to download in both Short-Form and Long-Form. The Short-Form Report Card 2016 highlights the main findings. The Long-Form Report Card 2016 explains how the report grades were derived and which data sources were used to derive the grades.
Find further details here.
Exploring early learning and childcare survey
The public spending watchdog, Audit Scotland, has launched a survey to gather the views of parents, carers and childminders of children who are eligible for funded early learning and childcare. The survey is particularly interested in the impact recent changes have had on children and families involved, for example the increase in number of funded hours from 475 to 600 per year, the provision of some funded spaces for two year olds and also the increase in flexibility of services (e.g. being able to split care between two settings). The survey is looking to seek as many experiences from parents, carers and childcare providers as possible so as they can seek to make improvements where possible and ensure that public funding is spent in the correct way.
View and complete the online survey here.
Read a blog by Rebecca Smallwood, auditor for Audit Scotland here.
And full details of Free Early Learning & Childcare eligibility can be found here.
New National Care Standards Update
The latest Update Bulletin on the progress towards the development of new National Care Standards is now available to view here. Five overarching principles; Dignity and respect; Compassion; Be included; Responsive care and support; and Wellbeing will help to shape the development of the new standards and will apply to all health and social care services in Scotland.
Full details of the ongoing review and development of the National Care Standards can be found here.
In the South (Ofsted)….
Cutting Red Tape Review
Alongside the consultation on the 30 hours free entitlement, the government’s Cutting Red Tape Review, provided a chance for the childcare sector to speak up about the impact of existing regulation on early years providers. There was an immense response to the review and Nursery World has published this article highlighting the key issues raised.
Childminder Numbers continue to fall
The latest Childcare Provider and Inspections report was published by Ofsted at the end of June and it highlights a continued fall in the number of childminders in the last quarter. Since the previous inspection cycle, over 11 000 childminders have left the early years sector however the overall number of places offered by childcare providers remains stable due to an increase in provision from non-domestic providers.
Liz Bayram, Chief Executive of the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years has commented that the continued drop in childminders is “extremely concerning” particularly in light of the Government’s promise to offer the 30 hours free childcare. Liz has called for urgent action in order to attract more childminders into the sector whilst also encouraging those already registered to stay. She highlighted that the continued withdrawl of local authority support for training and development alongside frozen funding levels has added more pressure to hard working childminders and their families during uncertain times…perhaps now even further emphasised for many over concerns of Brexit. Liz added that we must “urge government to address this through its much-anticipated workforce development strategy to ensure that childminders have more support.”
The Childcare Provider and Inspections report can be found here.
GCSE Requirements
In 2014 the government introduced the requirement that all Level 3 Early Years Educators (EYEs) must have at least a Grade C in GCSE English and Maths in order to count in a setting’s permitted ratios. Following pressure from the Save Our Early Years Campaign, the childcare minister Sam Gyimah has announced that there will be a review and that it will be delivered alongside the workforce strategy. Supporters of the Save Our Early Years Campaign have been calling on the government to recognise that functional skills in English and maths also provide staff with essential soft skills and must be accepted as an alternative for Level 3 EYEs. There is belief that the policy has led to a significant shortfall in the number of Level 3 EYE’s which is threatening the quality of care within our childcare settings in addition to putting at risk the Government’s pledge to deliver the 30 hours free childcare entitlement.
You can read more about the Save Our Early Years Campaign here.
And more about Sam Gyimah’s promise of the review in this Nursery World article.
And what’s been happening in MindingKids?
We have been as busy as ever creating more new resources and responding to requests from our very supportive customers. We cannot emphasise enough how much we like to hear from you. It is wonderful to receive such positive feedback and also to find out about what more we can do to help you. Thank you very much to all who have been in touch with ideas and suggestions. Our request list is certainly growing in size but that is fabulous news! There is never a shortage of inspiration for helpful resources.
Working with others
We have also been continuing to work alongside my sister Fiona of Story Club English, who in April provided us with the Adaptable Games & Activities Book. A resource bursting with ideas to support children in each of the development areas. Fiona has been discussing with me further resources that she can offer that would be of interest to MindingKids customers. Following recent concerns highlighted above, we agreed that a School Activity Pack would be very helpful as an additional resource for providers to support children with transition and prepare them for school. This pack is now available to download here! I hope to continue to work alongside Fiona and we already have some more exciting ideas up our sleeves!
Sarah Neville of Knutsford Childminding has also been in touch with MindingKids this week. Sarah continues to be an absolute god send to childcare providers through her very informative blogs and Independent Childminders website. Sarah is excellent at translating the lastest legislation jargon and expectations for providers into explanations that we can all understand as well as providing excellent examples of how we can deliver these expectations in our day to day practice. Sarah has requested to use some of MindingKids resources in some pre-registration training material and I am absolutely delighted that she described MindingKids resources as being amongst the “best out there”. MindingKids has received a lot of very positive feedback from customers lately who have been awarded with outstanding grades from their recent inspections. This amazing feedback alongside Sarah’s request to include MindingKids work alongside her own really means the world. It is brilliant to hear real life stories of how our resources are helping hard working childcare providers. I hope to keep in touch with Sarah and continue to work alongside others to produce further helpful material.
Looking ahead
More than a year on from the release of our improved website, and coming up for 10 months since the launch of the MindingKids Web App, we are looking again at how we can make further improvements to the website and to the app. We are monitoring how easy it is for customers to navigate around the site, log into their accounts, access downloads and also thinking of ways in which we can improve the prominence of the latest news and resources. As mentioned in our spring news update we are also working on further additions to the app. Again, please contact us if you have any ideas or suggestions. We would be delighted to hear from you.
And….there is something very exciting going on behind the scenes!….
MindingKids is Getting Married!!!
My wonderful partner Mike finally popped the question on Chirstmas Day after 9 wonderful years together. Mike has been incredibly supportive to me and gave me the confidence and encouragement to set up MindingKids. The last 6 months have been a blur of excitement with the planning of our big day. We tie the knot on 23rd July at a Scottish Castle in the company of our three gorgeous girls, family and friends. This of course means that I will be taking a little time off in the run up to and after the wedding. But do not panic…everything on the website will remain up and running during this time. Please note however that I will not be available to dispatch CD orders or respond to emails and messages left either through the contact form on the website or the Facebook page from Wednesday 20th July until Monday 15th August. If you do have any queries during this time, please double check the FAQ page. You may find the answer to your question there. If not, I will try to respond to any urgent enquiries as soon as possible. I am sure I will return from my honeymoon and kiddiemoon refreshed and ready to crack on with more exciting resources for my amazing customers!
Since our Spring News Update the following resources have been added, updated or improved…
Remember MindingKids Members have unlimited access to all MindingKids resources immediately as they are added or updated! Click here for further details!
New Resources
Updates / Amendments
Seasonal Planning Sheets updated to include Summer 2017.
Multiple Contact Policy added to Policies & Procedures Pack.
Compliments & Feedback Form and Cover plus Multiple Contact Information Sharing Form added to Logbooks & Forms Pack.
Coming soon…
We are getting lots and lots of requests for more Activity Packs so next on the list is ‘In the Jungle’. We also have also had suggestions for Outer Space, Dinosaurs and a few more. More educational displays are also in demand so we are looking into adding All About Colours, All About Shapes and All About Letters Charts to our collection. We have also had a very exciting suggestion for a Messy Play recipe book! Look out for these as they become available over the coming months.
Requests & Suggestions
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please get in touch! We are always looking for inspiration and ways in which we can improve our products and services. Remember… MindingKids may be able to provide you with a resource you have requested for FREE! Please email us at contact@mindingkids.co.uk with your ideas!
Thank you to all for your continued support! Keep a look out for more MindingKids News soon!
Many thanks! Cheryl & The MindingKids Team! xxx
