Early Years Improvement Services Offer

In July 2013 the Government published More Affordable Childcare which set out how local authorities should work with early years and childcare providers in the future. The key change for providers is that Ofsted is now singularly responsible for the quality of registered early years and childcare provision.

Kent County Council (KCC) continues to be committed to supporting the highest quality early years and childcare provision for our children and their families, and as a result we offer the following support and advice to all providers at no cost:

• Regular, comprehensive bulletins, forums and network meetings
• Access to the Kent Education, Learning and Skills Information (KELSI) website
• Support and advice to ensure that KCC meets its statutory duties to establish sufficient and sustainable early years and childcare provision
• An intensive programme of support to ensure that more children achieve a Good Level of Development at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage
• Support from the Specialist Teaching and Learning Service in line with established ways of working
• Training on the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Process
• Safeguarding Telephone Consultation

In addition, for those providers judged by Ofsted to be ‘Requiring Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ there is an intensive programme of support to improve settings as quickly as possible to ‘good’ or better.

All other support and services not mentioned above will be available on a chargeable basis.