Welcome to the first newsletter of Spring 2018. Since beginning to write we have seen hail, torrential rain and snow. As I write, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it feels that warmer days are not too far away. It’s been a busy ½ term on the forum with our members keen to support each other’s developing practice with management tips and techniques. We are lucky to have such a wealth of experience and expertise to draw on at FSF.

EYFS News

We continue to keep you up to date with research publications to ensure that you have access to the best information available. Ceeda’s bulletin on the state of the early years sector makes for somber reading. We are well aware from our members’ input in the funding threads that the 30 hours provision is proving a challenge for many colleagues. Ofsted’s Bold Beginnings report has generated much debate both on our forum and in the national press. If you haven’t read the report it can be found here. Our forum thread, which tracks many of the key contributions and clarifications can be followed here.

FSF and Tapestry news

We know that you are gearing up in preparation for the General Data Protection Regulation that comes into effect at the end of May. To help settings ready themselves we have written a series of threads to help you find your way through what feels like a very confusing task. Our step by step guide is in this forum. In addition, we would like you to check all your FSF details are correct in readiness for GDPR. You can follow this instructional thread from here.

Yesterday we attended the third APPG meeting at Westminster. It was great to meet so many passionate members of the early years workforce. We listened to interesting talks from Joanne McCartney AM, Deputy Mayor for Education and Childcare, Jamie Leith, co-founder of Manny & Me, and Michelle Dyson, Director for Early Years and Childcare at the Department for Education. Attendees asked challenging questions and all speakers were left in no doubt about the strength of feeling in the sector. If you would like to read a full account of the meeting then please follow this thread.

We continue to develop and improve our Tapestry package for users. We have recently added a new user permission, which you can set for relatives, ‘view other relative’s observations’. If this is set to 'not permitted', relatives linked to the same child will not be able to see each other's observations. This might ber helpful for estranged parents. As with the other user permissions on Tapestry you can set this for to apply to all relatives or just for individual ones. For more information about how to set the user permissions for relatives on Tapestry, you can check out our tutorial about them. There are other new features too, you can read about them here

If you are looking for CPD, then don’t forget our Courses and Events page which is currently advertising courses in London, Kent, Brighton, Southampton, Bedford, York, Edinburgh as well as several online courses. Many of the courses are free to do or are very low cost, so there really is no excuse to let your CPD slip!

We'd like to welcome back members from the following authorities, which have renewed their LA subscription. Members from these authorities need do nothing; their individual accounts will automatically be re-subscribed:

For their 4th year – Bedford

For their 7th year - Slough

For their 9th year – Wigan

For their 11th year - LB of Barnet

And special welcome back to Sandwell renewing for their 12th year

Since our last newsletter, we have published articles written by Alistair Bryce Clegg and by Penny Tassoni. Alistair asks us to think about how we prepare and present our setting to ensure that we are encouraging children to be ambitious, inquisitive learners. His article includes some excellent tips to help you keep ‘on top’ of your provision. You can read the article here.

Penny’s article gives us much to think about when considering educational disadvantage. Penny guides us though research and ideas that identify commonalities between children who fall into the category of ‘disadvantaged’. By knowing and understanding what makes children ‘disadvantaged’ we can focus on helping them. You can read Penny’s article here.