Early Years Support and Moderation

The Early Years support and moderation provider will be required to undertake the following key deliverables:

1. To provide support for Private, Voluntary and Independent settings and child-minders that have an OfSTED inspection rating of “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. The support provided is to be tailored to the needs of individual settings and structured into a clear action plan. All such plans must be agreed with the Medway Council Head of Service for Early Help and Targeted services and Programme Lead Early Years Sufficiency.
Support for settings and child-minders in these circumstances must ensure that:
• Contact is made within 48 hours of the OfSTED judgement
• A remedial action plan is in place within five working days
• The remedial action plan is reviewed as least every six weeks until such time that sufficient progress has been made against identified actions and monitoring is no longer required. This should be agreed between the service and Medway Council.

2. To work with the four targeted group team leaders to develop a consistent offer of Early Help hub sessions, linking to the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

3. To support Medway Council’s Head of Service for Early Help and Targeted services with LA Ofsted visits regarding Early Years Quality, and in completion of resulting actions. This will include attendance at the annual visit and pre meetings, and support in jointly developing and implementing a subsequent action plan.

4. To provide support and guidance for any new EYFS provision or any EYFS expansions including schools, PVI settings or Child-minders. This will include individual advice and guidance around safeguarding, welfare requirements and quality.

5. To establish effective partnership working arrangements for health partners working in Early Years settings and in Medway’s Children and Family Hubs. This includes partnership working with key stakeholders including the Medway Community Healthcare health visiting and children’s therapy teams and the Medway Foundation Trust midwifery service, and must including establishing and chairing a forum to facilitate joint working practices.

6. To provide a sector-specific MSCB-endorsed DSL training to early years settings in Medway, as a traded service, ensuring sufficient capacity that all settings are able to access training to enable statutory compliance as necessary.

7. Delivering twice yearly briefings for PVI settings and child-minders outlining national policy or Ofsted changes, at times to be agreed by the Programme Lead Early Years Sufficiency. It is anticipated that these briefings will be required to take place in April and October.

8. Undertake statutory moderation of Early Years Foundation Stage Profile scores. This will include moderation of the EYFS profile via a process of sampling and discussion. Evidence to be discussed with teachers’ includes discussion relating to
• materials
• knowledge of the child
• anecdotal incidents
• results of observations
• information from additional sources that supports the overall picture of a child’s development

Selected settings are to be notified of moderation by the end of the school spring term. The provider is required to provide the results of this moderation to the Local Authority by December 1st in the year in which moderation takes place.