Useful Links and Resources
Help for Early Years Providers
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) has changed. Find guidance and practical support to help you with the changes.
These resources are for childminders, nursery leaders and pre-school practitioners.
Help for early years providers - Department for Education
New Food Safety Resource
Tragically, a child dies in the UK every month from choking and hundreds more require hospital treatment. The EYFS framework requires providers to take all necessary steps to keep children safe and well. Early years practitioners must be confident that those responsible for preparing and handling food in their setting are competent to do so.
To support this, DfE have developed a new food safety resource on the 'Help for Early Years Providers' service with advice on safe weaning, foods to avoid, how to prepare food safely to avoid choking and preparing food hygienically.
Food safety - Help for early years providers - GOV.UK (education.gov.uk)
Healthier Food and Drink Provision
The Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk) sets out what providers must do to promote the good health of children attending the setting. This includes ensuring that children have a healthy balanced diet by providing access to healthier food provision in line with current government dietary recommendations for children. Given what we know about the links between living with obesity in childhood and adulthood, it has never been more important to ensure that children are eating a healthy balanced diet by providing access to healthier food provision and, in doing so, are building an understanding of the importance of healthier choices supporting their development now and in the future. The revised EYFS learning and development requirements that came into effect on 1st September 2021 emphasise the importance of supporting children to learn how to look after their bodies, including how to make healthy choices in relation to food.
Helpful resources for consideration are:
- Public Health England’s example menus and useful guidance for early years settings to help meet the EYFS requirements for food and drink. This comprehensive guidance was prepared in 2017 by the Children’s Food Trust. It includes menus and useful information for early years settings, for example, to provide only fresh tap water and plain milk for children to drink.
Example menus for early years settings in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- Eat Better, Start Better (produced in 2012 and updated in 2017) – developed by Action for Children in collaboration with the Children’s Food Trust, following the recommendations of the Advisory Panel for Food and Nutrition in Early Years. This practical guide is to help providers meet the requirement for the provision of healthy, balanced, and nutritious food and drink.
Eat-Better-Start-Better1.pdf (foundationyears.org.uk)
Physical Development
It is important to stress the value of children being physically active. The pandemic has meant that many children may have been less able to be physically active, which may have had an impact on physical development. It is very important that children attending early years settings are given the opportunity to be physically active and to develop their gross and fine motor skills.
Physical development is a prime area of learning in the EYFS, and this has been built upon in the revised framework from September 2021 through a more detailed educational programme and new Early Learning Goals on gross and fine motor skills.
The Chief Medical Officer has published guidance on physical activity, which practitioners will find useful to refer to when planning their EYFS curriculum. This recommends a minimum of 180 minutes of physical activity every day for children aged 1-5.
Physical activity guidelines: UK Chief Medical Officers' report - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Oral Health
Poor oral health in childhood has a significant impact on children and families, with tooth decay being the most common reason for 6 to 10 year olds being admitted to hospital. From September 2021, the EYFS framework includes a requirement to promote the good oral health of children in the existing requirement to promote good overall health.
While it is up to individual providers to determine how they meet this requirement in a way that works best for their setting, all providers will need to take steps to find ways in which they can encourage children to take care of their teeth and gums.
Where providers have a supervised tooth brushing activity or programme, Public Health England guidance is available to help providers with this during the Covid-19 outbreak. The guidance currently recommends dry brushing models where children brush their teeth without the use of water or sinks to minimise infection transmission risks. This can take place with children seated or standing.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Personal, social, and emotional development is a prime area of learning enshrined in the statutory EYFS framework. This includes helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and to learn how to manage their feelings. We know that children who were born just before the pandemic, or who have spent most, if not all, of their life living under social restrictions will have experienced a subsequent reduced level of socialisation than they would have otherwise had. There has never been a more important time to support all children’s mental health and wellbeing so that their personal, social, and emotional development is supported, even at this difficult time. Providers may find this list of mental health resources for parents, carers, children, and staff useful when planning their approach.
For further links and resources to support Mental Health and Wellbeing please follow this link:
Wellbeing and Mental Health (Adult and Child) – Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council