Early Years News January 2026

Welcome to your first Childcare.co.uk newsletter of 2026!

We hope you had a relaxing and peaceful holiday and are ready to face the challenges of the new year, whatever they might bring.

We aim to reduce the load with these newsletters – they will stay online so you can pop back to them whenever you need to look something up or check what’s happening in the world of early years.

Government - early years funding rates 2026-27

The government has announced that average funding rates are to rise by 4.3% for under 2s and 4.9% for 3- and 4-year-olds next year; early years pupil premium will also increase by 15% to £1.15 / hour. Councils will not be able to retain more than 3% of funding for ‘central services’.

Local authorities have to announce their funding rates and other funding supplements by 28th February 2026 at the latest. This will allow you to budget for the year ahead.

While it is good to see the Labour government delivering on Conservative promises by continuing to offer funding for parents and the increase will go some way towards paying staff increased national minimum and living wage, the increases still remain below what are needed, especially for 3- and 4-year-olds. Childminders state that they will still struggle on the pre-school rate, every LA still has their own pass-through rates for different ages, admin required for funding has increased with the need for itemised parent invoices from January 2026 and a recent DfE survey shows the number of registered childminders continues to fall.

Government – Child Poverty Strategy

The government has published its Child Poverty Strategy which commits to expanding access to childcare and ‘essentials’ and aims to combat the ‘devastating effect’ of children living in temporary accommodation.

The strategy recognises spiralling levels of poverty in the UK and aims to address them to take 4.5 million children out of poverty. Strategies include removal of the two-child benefit cap, reducing energy bills and increasing the living wage. Parents on universal credit will have more access to help with childcare costs so they can return to work. There will also be a review of childcare provision which is generally welcomed by the early years sector.

Ofsted - annual report

Ofsted have released their latest annual report which highlights the lack of access to quality early education and care in the most deprived areas of the country.

This is echoed in Ofsted’s new inspection framework which focuses on vulnerable children, inclusion and high-quality support for every child especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, children with SEND and children who are known (or previously known) to social care.

Providers will point to concerns about funding rates not covering delivery costs, especially causing issues in areas of deprivation where parents are unable to pay extra money to offset the government underpayment. They will also raise the issues of ‘childcare deserts’ where there might only be 1 childminder left in the community due to repeated government and Ofsted policy changes.

Ofsted – childcare register compliance inspections

Ofsted has updated it’s guidance on carrying out childcare register compliance inspections.

Some childminders are only registered to care for children on the childcare register (from year 1 upwards) and some before and after school or holiday clubs might also find this guidance useful.

Ofsted carry out inspections on 10% of childcare register only settings each year.

If you are a newly registering childminder, Childcare.co.uk offers Childcare Register training (a requirement in the application process).

Ofsted – inspection information for parents

Ofsted has updated its information about inspection guidance for parents.

There is no statutory requirement to share this information with parents, but they might find it a useful guide if they don't have any experience of how Ofsted work.

Note the parent guidance still says 6 years between inspections, because that’s correct until April 2026, when DfE are funding Ofsted to carry out more regular (4 yearly) inspections.

Childcare.co.uk expect this guidance will be updated again when the inspection timescales change.

DfE – What grades lose funding?

DfE has informed early years providers in a Foundation Years email about which grades will lead to a likely loss of funding under the new Ofsted early years inspection toolkit grading system. However, this will depend on the decision made by your Local Authority.

As every LA is probably going to make its own decisions, it will be important to speak to them if you get these grades. They will also be required to give you advice and support.

DfE state that the grades that will likely lead to loss of funding will be:

• Safeguarding not met – all funding.
• Leadership – urgent improvement – 3- and 4-year-old funding.
• Leadership – urgent improvement or needs attention – 2-year-olds receiving additional support.

Your provider agreement will probably need to be updated in the new year to reflect these changes. Your Local Authority will be able to share more information about how they will decide which providers will have their funding withdrawn when local decisions have been made.

Study – more movement needed

A recent research study from the universities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Cardiff, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research in the ‘Journal for Physical Health and Activity’, shows that fewer than 1 in 4 preschool children meet daily activity guidelines of 3 hours of movement a day, despite being more active on days they attend early years settings.

The answer is twofold – to get children moving more in early years settings and to share information with parents about the importance of developing fundamental movement skills, supporting the internal senses which are essential for movement and how to encourage more movement at home.

Look out for the Fundamental movement skills webinar planned for March 2026 for more information about Ofsted’s requirement that we ‘explicitly teach’ children fundamental movement skills. 

Local authority – do you know the safeguarding threats?

What are your Local Authority safeguarding partners’ focus areas for 2026?

The NSPCC has recently alerted the government to an ‘urgent crisis’ of child neglect across the country – is this reflected in your local area?

Neglect can be difficult to evidence – sometimes, families are overwhelmed while other times there are cases of ‘affluent neglect’ where children are emotionally impacted by busy family lives. Everyone is responsible for keeping children safe and you should always take prompt advice if you are unsure about a child’s safety.

It is important to speak to your Local Authority safeguarding partners and check local updates regularly as well as, where possible and practical, engaging with their training in addition to the regular safeguarding webinars from Childcare.co.uk.

DfE - invoicing parents from January 2026

You might need to change the way you invoice parents from January 2026. To comply with DfE updated statutory guidance on invoicing, if a family is funded your invoices must be clear and transparent and the invoice will need to show –

• Funded hours – set out the number of hours a child is entitled to for the term and the number of hours they have taken. These hours must be delivered free.
• Non-funded hours – show the additional private paid hours the child is booked to attend the setting at your normal hourly / daily rate.
• Food charges – if you ask parents to pay for food (or a contribution towards food) the fee must be clear on the invoice and parents must know that it is optional and they can send food instead.

Don’t forget if you add food to your income, you also need to remember to claim food as an expense.

• Non-food consumables – you can charge for nappies, wipes and sun cream if agreed with parents. The charge must be on a separate line on the invoice so parents can see it clearly. Again, this charge must be optional, and parents can send in their own supplies.
• Outings/extras – any extra activities you do with children can be grouped together as a total on the invoice, but to be transparent it’s recommended that you also share details about what parents are paying for – for example, £5 for toddler group (date).

DfE has stated that you cannot charge funded parents ‘top up’ fees or for materials (paper, crafts etc), business running costs, registration fees or non-refundable deposits. However, if a parent wants to make a voluntary contribution they can do so. This must be specified on the invoice as ‘voluntary payment’.

In all cases, you cannot force additional charges for the funded hours – parents must be informed that they can opt out, the payments are voluntary, not a condition of a child accessing a place and non-payment will not affect their child’s provision of the EYFS.

If you are a group setting, you must put this information on your website / Local Authority advert. Childminders can opt out of this requirement but some LAs are pushing them to do it – you will need to check locally.

Childcare.co.uk has free funding guidance for all members.

Ofsted - additional teaching expectations

In the last Childcare.co.uk newsletter for December 2025, we set out the Ofsted ‘explicit teaching’ expectations in the Ofsted early years inspection handbook – fundamental movement skills, mathematics and executive function skills.

Childcare.co.uk has webinars planned for early in the new year.

In addition to the inspection expectations for ‘explicit’ teaching, there is also information in the inspection toolkit about what Ofsted expect to see in the curriculum and what providers need to be teaching children, including, for example –

• The importance of treating others with kindness, care and respect.
• To follow routines.
• To manage their own feelings and behaviour and to understand how these have an impact on others.
• Independence to manage personal care routines.
• Making healthy choices about food, rest, exercise and screen time.
• An age-appropriate understanding of the protected characteristics (see the Equality Act 2010 – section 4).

• Good manners and social skills – and more.

Preparing for Ofsted inspection means embedding Ofsted’s expectations in your everyday practice so you don’t have to worry about making sudden changes for inspection that confuse the children – because you are doing it with the children as part of your routines and in your small group planning sessions.

You will find more information in the Ofsted inspection and teaching Information Guide from Childcare.co.uk.

Study – finger counting in early childhood boosts later maths performance

Good news for those of us who still use their fingers when making calculations, a recent study by the American Psychological Association suggests that children who count on their fingers in the early years have better addition skills by age 7 than those who do not use their fingers.

The importance of using fingers to count has been highlighted in various Childcare.co.uk ‘Mathematics’ webinars over the years and it is good to see published evidence of its effectiveness in providing children with a tool that helps them develop advanced abstract arithmetic skills in later life.

You might also want to catch the upcoming March 2026 Maths and explicit teaching webinar.

Study – using mindfulness to support well-being

Research by early years academics from the University of Chichester has explored how mindfulness can support young children’s wellbeing, addressing increasing concerns about the mental health of pre-schoolers. 

The report states that, ‘The most recent NHS statistics report that 5.5% of preschool children aged 2- to 4-year-olds in England have a probable mental health disorder.’ However, researchers noted that these statistics are likely to underestimate the extent of mental health conditions for young children, due to long waiting lists to see a professional and the challenges of diagnosing mental health conditions in young children.

Mindfulness activities you might want to plan and introduce for your early years children include, for example, breathing exercises, attention activities (see the recorded Childcare.co.uk Letters and sounds phase 1 webinar), puppet play to resolve conflicts, a focus on emotions learning and positive affirmations. The research suggests weekly small group sessions of between 10 and 20 minutes in length and more mindfulness activities introduced as part of children’s daily routines.

Practice – Childcare.co.uk small group planning guides

You will notice that the Childcare.co.uk small group planning guides for 2026 have a slightly different focus for 2026. They will include some activity ideas linked to themes, but they will mostly be about festivals and celebrations through the year.

There is no requirement or expectation to plan a ‘festival of the week’ or similar. In truth, this way of working might overwhelm the most experienced early years provider – never mind the children.

The monthly group planning guides sit alongside a library of general monthly planning guides which can be used to complement your small group planning. They are a guide and allow you to dip in and out, selecting those festivals that make sense for the children in your care.

Ofsted – what is your curriculum?

Everyone has a different answer in mind when they talk about curriculum, and it is one of the most frequently asked questions online.

In a nutshell, the curriculum is everything you want children to learn and be able to do during their time with you. A childminder might say, for example, that their curriculum is about ‘getting children ready for school’ and an group provider might talk about their outside based curriculum or how they focus on children’s current interests to build their curriculum.

The curriculum starts with the 7 areas of learning set out in the EYFS educational programmes.

Childcare.co.uk has added some new curriculum guidance documents for gold members to their resources.

There is also a Curriculum confidence webinar planned for January.

Ofsted - childhood obesity

Ofsted will ask about local obesity figures during the inspection planning call linked to their new explore an area website which encourages you to take account of your local ‘context’ when planning activities for children – for example, if there is an obesity issue in your area, the expectation is that you will use this information to do more to support parents and children.

Alongside this, the government has announced new plans to combat what they call a ‘childhood obesity epidemic’.

The plans include the latest nutrition statutory guidance from DfE which includes guidance on, for example, portion sizes, active lifestyles, healthy eating habits and more.

Childcare.co.uk has free healthy eating and food and nutrition policies and a useful blog about the recent changes to healthy and safe eating in the EYFS 2025.

Ofsted – inclusion during inspection

Did you see the latest blog from Childcare.co.uk? It’s all about inclusion during inspection.

Ofsted are focusing on inclusion and vulnerable children as a theme that is individually inspected and then runs through all the other inspection areas.

Childcare.co.uk has put together latest information, guidance and resource links in their Inclusion – what you need to know blog.

Childcare.co.uk free childminder organiser

The Childcare.co.uk free childminder organiser for 2026 has arrived!

The free childminder organiser includes so much useful information and updated guidance for early years providers and is free from Childcare.co.uk for all members.

The organiser also comes with a free childminder diary and free budget planner for 2026.

Practice – January plans

What do you have planned for the children when they come back into the setting from their holiday?

To start with, it’s probably best to focus on lots of sensory play opportunities while children are busy regulating their emotions; you will also be encouraging children to share and listening to stories about what they have done over the festive period.

Some children might not have had the best holiday – there might be family conflicts and upset routines which will leave them feeling emotional while others will be shattered after late nights and too much festive spirit and possibly chocolate.

It’s generally best to keep planning loose for a few days and reintroduce your normal routines slowly, over time. Your teaching focus might be on winter – a new season – and ice, snow, animals and birds in winter etc. As always, start with a book as a hook and see where it takes you all.

Childcare.co.uk January 2026 small group planning is available on the website to support you.

Childcare.co.uk upcoming webinars for January 2026

When planning webinars, Childcare.co.uk are always thinking ahead – what will providers need to know about in the future? This might involve a bit of juggling sometimes as new subjects pop up or members ask us repeated questions which lead to a new webinar being added to the schedule. If you have any requests for new webinars, please let us know.

The webinars broadcasting in January 2026 will cover:

6th January – Curriculum confidence

Members tell us they are unsure how to talk about their curriculum to an Ofsted inspector. This webinar will give you the confidence to talk about your curriculum.

12th January – Behaviour and attitudes.

This is part of the new ‘Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines’ part of inspection and will focus on how to share with your inspector how you support children’s behaviour to improve their attitudes to learning.

20th January – Welfare and wellbeing

Another webinar planned to support members with the new Ofsted inspection toolkit expectations. Children’s welfare and wellbeing picks up where ‘safeguarding’ finishes and covers a huge range of discussion topics.

27th January – Packed lunches

This webinar has been requested by members. We will discuss how to support parents who wish to provide a packed lunch for their child.

More information and resources

Childminder Guides

Childminder Paperwork

Childminder Policies

Childminder Organiser

Childminder Diary

Childminder e-books

Childminder Budget Planner

Safeguarding Quick References Cards

COEL Quick Reference Cards

Health & Safety Toolkit

Information Sheets for Parents

Early Years Safety Blog

Activities Ideas & Resources

Childminder Insurance
 

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