EYCC Noticeboard

Early Years and Childcare Update - 21 August 2025

Welcome to this week's Early Years and Childcare update!

This week's update includes information on:

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 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.

Small Hazards, Big Harm Campaign 

A new campaign to make parents aware of the risks and dangers posed by small, everyday items has been launched by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS).  

The focus is particularly on small objects such as magnets and button batteries, which have caused increasing concern in recent years due to related accidents among young children.  

The campaign, ‘Small Hazards, Big Harm’, features up-to-date resources that sit alongside the button battery top tips poster launched in May, which was developed in collaboration with accident prevention charities, clinicians, manufacturers, online marketplaces, and trade associations.  

The campaign will include a new video featuring Samantha McCarthy, whose two-year-old daughter had to have lifesaving surgery after swallowing 14 tiny magnetic balls in 2021.  

Campaign resources have been designed for local authorities, consumer bodies, community groups and the public to help protect children, including posters and social media materials.  

Updated ‘Small Hazards, Big Harm’ resources can be found here.  

Early Education Entitlement

Checking Codes / Autumn

For the attention of PVI providers. 

Please make sure you are checking your codes before the start of term. You should check all codes before allowing children to start.  

Working Codes 

Please check and validate working codes on portal to confirm parents have a code which is eligible for the term. For Autumn term, you will need to check that all codes have a validity start date on or before 31st August 2025. Any codes with a validity start date after this time will not be eligible until the following term. You must ensure you have the correct national insurance number and child’s date of birth in order to enter these onto your headcount claim. 

Disadvantaged 2-year-old and EYPP codes 

You will need to make sure you enter the correct national insurance number, the child’s date of birth and parent’s date of birth on to the headcount. These details must match with the application in order to be entered onto your claim. Please check parents have given you accurate information. 

If you have any codes which are not eligible, but parent’s meet the eligibility criteria, you can submit an Eligibility Override Request. Please action this before headcount day to ensure you will be funded.

Introduction to WellComm Training 

WellComm is the approved screening tool in Birmingham, and it supports a consistent universal approach to assessing and supporting children’s speech, language and communication needs. From the autumn term it will be mandatory for PVI settings to add your WellComm screening results for each child on the EEE portal alongside headcount submission.  

If you are not yet using WellComm to screen your children’s speech and language, please attend one of our online training sessions. Birmingham City Council will fully fund one WellComm Toolkit for all schools, nurseries, pre-schools, and childminders registered to offer Early Education Entitlement (EEE) places. Early Years settings need to attend an ‘Introduction to WellComm’ workshop. During the workshop, you will be provided with instructions on how to receive your Toolkit. Settings that have received a WellComm screening tool can continue to send staff that are new or require a refresher of how to use WellComm onto the training. 

We have training sessions available until the end of the year. Please click the link next to your preferred date to book your place. 

WellComm Data Collection

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.

Thank you to the day nurseries, childminders and preschool playgroups that have shared their WellComm screenings on their EEE portal headcount submission in May. You will not be required to fill out the online WellComm data collection form as we already have your screening data.

If you are a school, maintained nursery school or PVI setting that has not shared your screening results on the EEE portal please complete the summer term WellComm data collection form.

The deadline for the form to be submitted is Thursday 31st August 2025.

To complete the survey, please click here.

This entry was posted by Jessica Wykes on 20/08/2025.

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