This week's update includes information on:

• Important: OFSTED/CQC Area SEND Inspection Survey
• Nominate a Provider Portal User
• Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Space Requirements Consultation Launch
• WellComm Data Collection
• 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

Important: OFSTED/CQC Area SEND Inspection Survey

Our Birmingham SEND Local Area Partnership are currently undergoing an OFSTED/CQC Area SEND Inspection. This inspection is crucial for evaluating the quality and effectiveness of our services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The inspectors have provided a survey link that we are required to share widely with all children and young people, parents, carers and practitioners to gather their views on our services. All feedback is invaluable in helping us improve and ensure we meet the needs of our children and young people effectively.

The survey will be live for the next 6 days, it is confidential and will only take a few minutes to complete. Responses will be seen only by Ofsted/CQC and not by us, so children, young people, parents, carers and practitioners can feel free to share their honest feedback.

Survey Link: https://ofsted.smartsurvey.co.uk/p/AreaSend/10364972

Live Period: 09 June 2025 to 9am on 17 June 2025

For any issues with accessibility please contact jodie.newson@birmingham.gov.uk, we can provide paper versions of the survey however note paper copies of the survey will need to be returned by 1pm on 16th June.

We kindly request your support in disseminating this survey link to all children and young people, parents, carers and practitioners of SEND children. Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated as this will be an opportunity for your voice and experience to be captured.  

Thank you sincerely for your cooperation and support. Should you have any queries or require further information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Nominate a Provider Portal User

As you may already 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 four 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 create 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

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Space Requirements Consultation Launch

You may already be aware that the space requirements under the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is currently under consultation for all early years and childcare settings.

As we get more children ready for school at age 5, the DFE are exploring new ways to help providers offer more high-quality childcare places for families, that includes access to outdoor space. Evidence shows the huge benefits of outdoor play to children from improved problem solving to mental and physical health. Yet currently, the government’s early years framework requires provision of outdoor play but only formally recognises indoor space in its requirements for how many children nurseries and childcare providers can take on at any one time.  

This consultation has been launched because early years providers expressed a desire for these rules to be updated. To meet forecasted demands for the expanded entitlements, the DFE estimate an additional 60,000 new places are required between September 2024 and September 2025, and one of the barriers to expanding childcare is physical space. In the department’s Pulse surveys of childcare and early years providers, November 2023, 70% of providers who responded said they would make better use of their outdoor space if more flexibility was introduced.  

On the 12th of May 2025, the government launched its “space requirements in early years childcare settings” consultation, which runs until the 11th July 2025 and is available at:

Online survey - Space requirements in early years childcare settings in England - Department for Education - Citizen Space 

To ensure we make the most of this opportunity, BCC Early Years and Childcare Team have scheduled three consultation events, and we warmly invite you to attend one of them. Your thoughts and suggestions are crucial, and we look forward to collating them as a sector.

We urge you to join just one of the consultation events below so we can capture the voices of Birmingham’s childcare providers. We have until 11th of July 2025, to provide our feedback.

• 18th June 10:00-11:30 
• 18th June 16:00-17:30
• 24th June 18:30-20:00 

Prior to our consultation discussions we urge you to review the links below:

Consultation background document - EYFS space requirements consultation 

Online Survey - Space requirements in early years childcare settings in England - Department for Education - Citizen Space 

If you are unable to join any of the above sessions, we ask that you please complete the online survey with your comments independently: Space requirements in early years childcare settings in England - Department for Education - Citizen Space

Thank you for your time and participation.

WellComm Data Collection

For the attention of EEE nurseries, EEE childminders, and EEE schools.

We appreciate your continued submission of WellComm screening results. Based on the feedback collected through the data collection form, the changes that we made last term have enabled easier collation and sharing of your screening results.

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.

The summer term WellComm data collection form is now available for you to share this term's screenings.

We kindly request that every early years provider returns their summer term WellComm screening results by Thursday 31st August 2025

To complete the survey, please click here.

We will be holding online sessions to demonstrate how to use the WellComm data spreadsheet, complete the data collection form and prepare for sharing your WellComm screens on the EEE portal from the autumn term. You will have the opportunity to ask questions and be signposted to practical support if required. Please use the booking links below for your preferred date.

• Friday 13th June, 11am – 12pm 
• Monday 16th June, 10am – 11am
• Tuesday 17th June, 2pm – 3pm 
• Wednesday 18th June, 6pm – 7pm 

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 two boxes of Early Talk Boost resources.

Please be advised that all current training dates are now fully booked. However, watch this space as new dates will be released soon for July and August.