Revised EYFS Due Soon?

We understand that the DfE are nearly ready to release a revised EYFS – according to information received by Sarah Neville during a recent meeting as part of the Early Years Reference Group North West it could be as early as this month.

We know that changes to the EYFS statutory requirements will include updated first aid requirements for group providers (no change for childminders) and further details about the ‘50% off premises’ rule for childminders which are currently contained in the Small Business and Enterprise Act.

We hope the EYFS will also clarify the new safeguarding requirements which have appeared since the EYFS was first released in 2014 including reference to the Prevent duty, the requirement to actively promote British values, the requirement to protect children online (and share information about online safety with parents as this came up in a recent childminder inspection report), DBS checks and the process for linking them to the update service and completing an EY2 form (the EYFS still refers to CRBs) and the new FGM statutory reporting requirements.

It should also include updates contained in the Early Years Inspection handbook relating to record keeping for ‘exclusions, children taken off roll and incidents of poor behaviour’ and ‘logs of incidents of discrimination including racist incidents’.

Other relatively new initiatives which we might find included in the revised EYFS include the new child obesity strategy including the advice to ensure 3 hours of active play a day for every child.

Early years providers including childminders are currently juggling a lot of different documents and we would welcome everything in the same place so we know exactly what we are dealing with...

We thank Ofsted for their continued engagement with the sector and hope this continues. We are looking forward to inspections coming in-house from 1st April 2017 and believe this will drive improvement and raise standards in inspectors.

There will be plenty of support for childminders when the EYFS is revised – on Childcare.co.uk, the Childminding Forum and the Independent Childminders facebook group. If any childminders are confused about the changes they should ask… together we are stronger.