Early Years and Childcare Update - 17 April 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 . 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

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 it. 

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

Early Education Entitlements 

Early Years Expansion Grant 2025 to 2026

For Childcare providers delivering EEE places for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months – 2 years, and for disadvantaged (also known as Families receiving additional support - FRAS) 2-year-olds.

In December 2024, the Department for Education (DfE) announced the early years expansion grant, which will provide an additional £75 million of funding to support the sector as it prepares to deliver the final phase of expansion of the working parent entitlement from September 2025.

To reflect the needs of providers as they deliver expansion of the new working parent entitlements, the DfE have focussed this grant as a one-off payment for 2-year-old (working and disadvantaged / FRAS) and 9-23 months working cohorts.

The grant must be used for the purposes of supporting the delivery of the childcare entitlements. All providers who receive this funding will be subject to a data collection return for the DFE confirming how this funding has supported the delivery of the entitlements.

The grant allocation for Birmingham will be distributed, in line with DfE guidance, as a flat rate per PTE child, as detailed below, according to the number of 2-year-olds (working and disadvantaged / FRAS) and working 9-23 months, who took up an early education entitlement place in settings in Spring 2025.

  • 9-23 months, working entitlement - £119.70 per child
  • 2-year-olds, working entitlement - £85.50 per child
  • 2-year-olds, disadvantaged entitlement - £85.50 per child

If you delivered places for this cohort in Spring term 2025, you will receive confirmation of your allocated grant amount by Thursday 17th April 2025.

Providers will receive their payments by the end of August 2025.

Providers who did not deliver any funded places in Spring 2025 for these cohorts will not receive a payment.

Providers who do not open and deliver early education entitlement places in Autumn 2025 term will be subject to clawback of funding.  

Working Eligibility Summer 2025

For parents of 9-months-olds, 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds to access working entitlement this Summer 2025 term, parents must have an eligible code dated on or before 31st March 2025. Parents must have applied for and received or reconfirmed their code by 31st March 2025.

It is your responsibility to check the code before offering a working entitlement place. You must do this by checking the code to make sure it is eligible for the current term. Codes must have a validity start day before the start of term to be eligible for that term.   

The local authority cannot fund codes that have a validity start date on or after the 1st April 2025.

Speech, Language, and Communication

Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Advice Line 

For the attention of all Early Years and Childcare providers.

Call: 0121 466 6231

Open Monday – Friday 9am – 4pm.

The Speech and Language Therapy advice line is available to Early Years settings and parents for advice and strategies to support children’s communication needs or eating and drinking concerns. They can take questions about your WellComm screening and give advice for children that are not making progress.

This is a voicemail service, so leave a message and a qualified Speech & Language Therapist will respond in a timely way. Leave your contact details and the best time to contact you, and SLT will return your call. You can also contact the SLT team by email at bchnt.childrens.slt@nhs.net. This is monitored daily, and staff will respond to you in a timely way.

You can also for advice, strategies and support.                                                 

Deadline Extension for Spring Term WellComm Data Collection

For the attention of EEE providers.

Thank you to the settings that have returned the Spring Term WellComm Data Collection Form. We appreciate that the end of term is a busy time; therefore we have extended the deadline for submission to 4th May 2025.

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 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. The spreadsheet is for your use only and not to be returned to us, we instead ask that you share your screening data through the online data collection form.  

If you would like support with using WellComm to screen children or with the WellComm data spreadsheet and form, please contact your local DLP team or Early Years Consultant or email eyduty@birmingham.gov.uk

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  to choose your preferred date and location.

This entry was posted by Jessica Wykes on 14/04/2025.

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