This week's update includes information on:

• Nominate a Provider Portal User
• EYMIS Update
• Wraparound Childcare Funding Application 
• Early Education Entitlements
  • WellComm Data Collection 
  • Key Dates for Summer 2025
  • NRPFs Summer 2025
• Birmingham Early Years Network Out of School Webpage Launch
• Early Talk Boost

Please feel free to share this update with anyone you think would benefit from accessing this content. 

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact familyinformation@birmingham.gov.uk

Nominate a Provider Portal User

As you should hopefully be aware, the Early Years and Childcare Team has launched a new Information Portal for providers called the Nexus Provider Portal. 

Many providers have already nominated a Nexus Provider Portal user. If you haven’t already done so, please do this today using our online form. You can have accounts for up to 4 people within your organisation. 

The introduction of this portal will enable us to:

• strengthen the information that we collect from you to support our sufficiency data
• improve the information that we can provide to parents and third parties when they are looking for childcare options
• contact you more efficiently.  

Please note: Completing this form does not immediately establish your account. After we verify the nominated user form, we will send you a link to create your Provider Portal account.

If you have any queries about the Nexus Provider Portal, please contact FamilyInformation@birmingham.gov.uk

EYMIS Update

We would like to inform you that the Early Years and Childcare Service has transitioned from EYMIS to a new Information Portal called the Nexus Provider Portal.

We understand that EYMIS previously hosted important documentation, and we want to ensure you can still access this information. 

To find documents previously available on EYMIS, as well as information, guidance, and helpful how-to video guides, please visit our dedicated web page: Introduction and guidance | NEXUS Provider Portal | Birmingham City Council

We are working to transfer as much of this documentation as possible. If you cannot find what you are looking for or have any queries, please contact us at familyinformation@birmingham.gov.uk

Wraparound Childcare Funding Application

Wraparound Care Grant Funding applications will be LIVE from 11th April 2025 until 30th May 2025.

Access the application form here.

We will be accepting funding to support providers with the following to increase wraparound care sufficiency in Birmingham.

• Creation of places: Create both new before school provision and after-school provision - where there is currently no provision.
• Extend hours: Extend the hours to meet full wraparound definition (8am to 6pm) - where you already provide wraparound, but it does not meet the 8am to 6pm expectation.
• Expand provision: Introduce before school provision or after school provision– where you have existing provision in place to meet the full wraparound definition.
• Expand places: Increase wraparound places - you already offer wraparound at capacity and want to expand due to unmet demand.
• Combination of above types will be considered to best support providers in creating/expanding their offer to meet full wraparound definition.

We will be accepting applications from the following providers:

• School-led provision delivered by school staff on a school site: Provision that operates on school premises, managed by staff employed directly by a school. The provision is open to all children in that school.
• Private provider-led provision, on or off school site: Provision that is operated and delivered by staff employed by a private provider. If based on a school site, the private provider may rent space from the school to be able to operate provision. Provision could also be operated on another site rather than on school premises.
• Community/cluster model: A community-focused model with children from multiple schools attending provision on one site. This could be operated by a lead school, a private provider, a community organisation or any other appropriate body.
• Childminders: Provision delivered by childminders (registered with Ofsted or a childminder agency), which schools and local authorities’ signpost to. This could consist of a group of childminders working together on a single site or childminders working individually from their homes.
• Early years providers: Provision delivered by early years providers which may take school aged children during wraparound hours. For example, a local nursery or a pre-school operating on or off a school site may run the provision before and after school hours.

Live Webinars, taking place on the 29th April 2025, will provide you with important information, tips for applying, and an opportunity for us to answer your questions.

Click on the appropriate link below to join the session of your choice:

• Tuesday 29th April, 11:30 – 13:00
• Tuesday 29th April, 18:30 – 20:00

Links to supporting documentation can be found below:

• WAC Application Overview
• WAC Funding APP Guidance - phase 2
• Income and Expenditure Template

Look out for further updates in the School's Noticeboard and in the weekly Early Years and Childcare Updates.

For any queries in the meantime, please contact the team at WAC@Birmingham.gov.uk

Early Education Entitlements

Key Dates for Summer 2025

As we start a new term, here are some useful facts and key dates for Summer 2025 term:

Interim payments for PVI nursery settings*:

• You will receive your interim 80% payment week ending 11th April 2025.
• If you did not submit an interim claim, you will receive 100% at the end of term.

*Childminders receive monthly payments

Headcount day: Thursday 15th May 2025

• A 9-month-old child must have turned 9 months on or before 31st March
• For 2-year-old funding, they must have turned 2 on or before 31st March
• For 3-year-old funding, they must have turned 3 on or before 31st March

Working codes must have been applied for, or reconfirmed, on or before 31st March in order to be eligible for summer term. Any codes applied/reconfirmed on or after 1st April will not be funded.

A child must have been in attendance at your setting on or before headcount day in order to be funded for summer term. Please check with your parents that they have not attended elsewhere, to ensure you receive the funding.

• Interim Claims - You will be able to submit your Autumn term 2025 interim claim 7th – 13th July 2025
• End of Term - You will receive your final 20% funding for summer term on the week ending 4th July 2025

NRPFs Summer 2025

NRPFs Disadvantaged and Working Applications overview:

Disadvantaged – Families who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF) may be eligible for 2-year funding. In these instances, both parents need to have NRPF. If one parent does have recourse to public funds, then they would need to apply and be eligible under any of the other criteria, for example, universal credit and the income from work would be considered from the whole household.

When a family with NRPF completes an eligibility application it will return as ‘not eligible’ or ‘eligibility not confirmed’ which means you must contact us, confirming that the family is eligible so that we can override the code

Eligibility applications for a place in a private nursery, Childminder or Independent school should be completed here.

For any new requests you will need to submit the completed application form to enable us to override the code. The form must be fully completed and signed by both the parents and the childcare provider. Incomplete application forms will be returned and not processed.

The form and guide are attached for your reference now but you will always find the most current version on the document website.

Working – Childcare / education funding isn’t a public fund, but the working parent entitlement does have residency requirements which can’t be met by someone with an NRPF condition attached to their visa.

A parent who has leave to remain with a 'No Recourse to Public Funds' (NRPF) condition cannot apply for the entitlement but can be included in an application made by a partner who meets the residence requirements.

If a parent is applying with their partner, the person who is applying must meet the residence requirement and both will need to satisfy the requirements relating to employment and income. For example, if one parent is a British citizen and their partner has leave to remain with NRPF, the British parent can make the application but both parents will need to be working and meet the income requirements.

WellComm Data Collection 

We appreciate your continued submission of WellComm screening results. Based on the feedback collected through the data collection form, Early Years Consultant visits, and input from our Developing Local Provision (DLP) teams, we have made several enhancements to streamline the form completion process and created an improved WellComm data spreadsheet, thereby facilitating easier collation and sharing of your screening results.

WellComm Data Spreadsheet

The WellComm Data spreadsheet is intended to assist in collating your WellComm screening results. The spreadsheet includes instructions for its use, a page for entering all of your children's screening results, and an automated analysis page. This analysis page offers a comprehensive summary of the data required for completing the WellComm Data Collection Form. Using the spreadsheet is optional, as you may have already developed your own, and it is for your use only and not to be returned to us. We ask that you share your screening data through the online data collection form.

WellComm Data Collection Form

We have updated the form to ensure that it only includes questions pertinent to the ages of children in your care. A new question has been added regarding the number of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) who have been screened using an alternative assessment tool. The form now comprises six age-specific sections, ranging from 6 months to 5 years. These sections focus on clarified children's statuses as red, amber, or green, along with their progress. Detailed explanations are provided under each question to clarify these terms. The Excel analysis sheet, in the attached spreadsheet, will answer all questions asked on the data collection form for children screened with WellComm.

We kindly request that every early year’s provider returns their Spring Term WellComm screening results by Friday 11th April 2025.

To complete the survey, please click here.

If you would like support with using WellComm to screen children or with the WellComm data spreadsheet and form, and if you are unable to attend one of the sessions, please contact your local DLP team or email eyduty@birmingham.gov.uk

Birmingham Early Years Network Out of School Webpage Launch

The Out of School webpage on the Birmingham Early Years Network website has now been launched!

Birmingham Early Years Networks | Out of School

Find information, reference documents and professional development specifically for out of school clubs, wraparound, holiday play schemes and Birmingham Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) and those considering becoming an out of school provider. 

Familiarise yourself with your district by exploring the informative pages and links provided or find out more about the Playwork Principles.

Early Talk Boost

This training is FREE and funded by Birmingham City Council, suitable for Birmingham EEE Funding Registered Day Nurseries, Nursery Schools and School Nursery Classes.

Early Talk Boost is a targeted intervention aimed at 3-4-year-old children who need help with talking and understanding words, helping to boost their language skills to narrow the gap between them and their peers. The programme aims to accelerate children’s progress in language and communication by an average of 6 months, after a nine-week intervention. 

Children selected to take part in the intervention will attend three sessions per week during circle/story time, each lasting 15-20 minutes delivered by an early year’s practitioner. The sessions activities include the foundation skills in speech, language, and communication that children need for learning and understanding new words, as well as having conversations. The training is delivered face to face and each setting will receive 2 boxes of Early Talk Boost resources.

The sessions take place at 9.30am – 3.00pm with a 20-person capacity:

• Thursday 1st May 2025, Wyndcliffe Primary School, Little Green Lane, B9 5BG
• Tuesday 6th May 2025, Perry Barr Family Hub (Rookery Children's Centre), 60 Mount Pleasant Avenue, B21 9QA
• Wednesday 21st May 2025, Wyndcliffe Primary School, Little Green Lane, B9 5BG
• Thursday 22nd May 2025, Erdington Family Hub (Lakeside Children's Centre), 22 Lakes Road, B23 7UH
• Friday 6th June 2025, Erdington Family Hub (Lakeside Children's Centre), 22 Lakes Road, B23 7UH
• Monday 16th June 2025, Selly Oak Family Hub (Chinnbrook Children’s Centre), 213 Trittiford Rd, Birmingham, B13 0ET
• Friday 20th June 2025, Perry Barr Family Hub (Rookery Children's Centre), 60 Mount Pleasant Avenue, B21 9QA

Please fill out the Microsoft form to choose your preferred date and location.