World Book Day: how to make a great book corner

Melanie Pilcher, quality and standards manager at the Alliance, shares some ideas for creating a book corner, or story area, to help encourage children to develop a love of books and reading. This is an extract of an article that originally appeared in the March 2019 issue of Under 5 magazine.

New partnership sets the standard for children’s nutrition

Young children’s nutrition will get a welcome boost from today with the launch of the Early Years Nutrition (EYN) Partnership. The EYN Partnership sets a new standard for nutrition practice in early years settings, providing ‘hands-on’ help, delivered by a network of registered nutritionists and dietitians with experience of early years settings. The goal of […]

Two-to-four year olds in the UK ‘not active enough to be healthy’

A recent report by The British Heart Foundation National Centre claims that 91% of two-to-four year olds in the UK are not active enough to be healthy. UK physical activity guidelines state that children within this age group need at least three hours activity a day to see health benefits, but The British Heart Foundation […]

Government mulls Ofsted fee increase

The government are set to consult on proposed increases to Ofsted annual fees, childcare minister Sam Gyimah has confirmed. In a letter sent to early years organisations, the minister stated “…many providers have faced increases in operating costs and, for this reason, we have resisted any fee increased over the course of the last parliament” […]

Ofsted publishes childminder agency inspection guidance

Childminder agencies will be rated as ‘effective’ or ‘ineffective’ rather than ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’, Ofsted has confirmed. According to the childminding agencies inspection handbook, published in draft format last month, childminder agencies will be assessed against three sub-judgements: the effectiveness of the leadership and management of the agency; the quality of the […]

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