From 2017

In September, Bristol Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) issued new guidance around making referrals to First Response that all childcare and school settings should have received.

First Response is the front door to children’s services in Bristol and on average they receive 2,000 referrals a month. You contact them if you have a safeguarding or child protection concern about a child or young person. Every referral is triaged by one of the qualified social workers in the team, to assess priority and allocate accordingly. This means each Deputy Manager could be analysing up to 30 referrals every day – more on some Monday mornings. To help First Response decide what action is necessary, the referral needs to contain as much information that is known about the child and their family, as well as details of any other agencies that might be already involved. If the child or family are not already known to Children’s Services, the information you provide could be the only information they have on which to base an initial decision.

Any decision is based on the BSCB Threshold Guidance. Using this, First Response will decide if it will be referred to the Early Help Team or a Social Work Unit for further assessment or that no further action will be taken.

First Response will focus on the voice of the child and the evidence of what impact the concerns raised are having on the child’s safety, welfare and life experiences.

First Response have to make a decision about what service is appropriate very quickly – they need detailed, accurate information to do this.

To support organisations in ensuring they are able to make good quality accurate referrals, BSCB has produced a powerpoint presentation and a practioner booklet which could be used in a team meeting or as a yearly update. The practioner booklet contains a completed referral form designed to highlight some of the issues with poorly completed forms and is a great tool to develop your understanding of what is needed to make a strong referral.

Another important message is the need for groups to see themselves as part of the Early Help offer. First Response will want to know what you have already done to support the child and family and who you have signposted them to.

As part of BAND’s ‘Action in Practice’ training course for Designated Safeguarding Leads, participants get the chance to start putting together a list of local agencies that can provide support and guidance on a range of topics like domestic abuse, FGM and on-line safety:

https://bandltd.org.uk/training/band-courses/action-in-practice-designated-safeguarding-person-training

It can be hard to know what and who is out there able to provide support, but BAND is always able to give advice and information to groups. You can also contact BAND if you just want to talk something through to see what the best course of action is.

The post BANDNews-Back Issues: Safeguarding Bristol’s Children appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From JULY 17

When summer comes, the days will be hot and balmy and we will all be longing for something to cool us down. Ice cream might seem like the obvious choice so why not give our ‘Ice Cream in a Bag’ recipe a go? Not only is it a yummy homemade treat, it’s also a great science activity with lots of opportunity for making predictions and observations and recording findings. Depending on numbers of children, you might need to make several bags.

Ingredients and Equipment

• A large zip lock bag (about 4.5 litres/a gallon in size)
• A smaller zip lock bag ) (about a litre/a quart)
• Ice
• ½ cup rock salt
• ½ cup whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• Flavour: a few drops of vanilla or other essence or a squirt of chocolate or fruit sauce
• Spoon
• Printable record sheet to use before, during and after

Method

• Place the cream, sugar and any flavouring you are using in the smaller bag and seal it to ensure there are no leaks (you could put it inside another bag as well as a precaution).
• Fill the large bag about a third of the way with ice and add the salt.
• Place the smaller bag inside the larger bag. Add more ice so that it is about 2/3 full and seal.
• Children to take turns using their hands to continuously move the bag around for about 20-25 minutes.
• The ice cream should then be ready to eat and enjoy.

Questions to Spark Curiosity & Critical Thinking

1. What state of matter is the mixture at the beginning of the experiment? How about at the end?

2. What happened to the ice in the large bag as you were making the ice cream? Why do you think this happened?

3. Why do you think salt is necessary in this activity?

What’s Going On?
Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water. When you add salt to your ice, you’re creating a mixture that is colder than just the ice itself. This colder temperature causes the mixture to freeze and become ice cream!

Want to go even further?

1. Experiment with different ratios of salt to ice and see how it affects the freezing of the ice cream.
2. Measure the temperature of the mixture before it freezes and after. Compare the two temperatures.
3. Based on this experiment, why do you think salt is sprinkled on icy roads in winter?

The post BANDNEWS – BACK ISSUES: Cooking Corner: Ice Cream in a Bag appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From JULY 17

Chadrack Mulo was a four year old boy who had autism and was non – verbal. When his mother unexpectedly died of an epileptic seizure in their family flat in October last year, Chadrack did not have the ability to call for help or to feed himself well. He was left alone for over 2 weeks and was found 2 days after his death from malnutrition and dehydration, clinging onto his mother’s body. A neighbour had alerted the Police.

Chadrack attended school and they followed their procedure for children who have a non-authorised absence but it was not robust enough to prevent his death.

As a result, the coroner has told Government ministers to take action on the systems schools use to deal with unexpected absences and the school has reviewed it’s policy with support from the Police.

If DfE guidance is updated, it is unlikely to cover nurseries and other childcare settings, so what can we learn from his death and how can we minimise the risk of a similar event ever happening again?

What the school did: School staff had attempted to call his mother on several occasions and visited the family home twice but could not gain access to the block of flats where they lived.

What went wrong: The school had only one contact number for the mother, and no other emergency contact numbers for other family or friends. The school did not have a procedure for calling the Police or alerting social services within a reasonable timescale. There was also no provision for increased concern about the child’s welfare as a result of the child’s significant additional needs.

Unanswered questions: Why was there not a better cross over between unauthorised absences and child protection; the school followed only it’s absence policy, but the non-attendance of a disabled child, or non-disabled child, should potentially have also fallen under their child protection policy. The child suffered from neglect leading to his death of which the only seen factor was his non-attendance at school and this should then have been followed up as a CP referral as well.

What can nurseries and other childcare settings do?:

Setting’s positive relationships with parents/carers are key; the knowledge you have of children and their families can enable the setting to understand when something is wrong.

For the 6 weeks of the Summer holidays, holiday playschemes might be the only settings to notice that a child or family is not ok. It’s imperative to follow up on all unexpected absences until you have a satisfactory answer.

Review your Absence Policy and practice in light of unauthorised absences and ensure that:

• There are sufficient emergency contacts for each child.
• There is a clear timeline for when staff will call First Response and the Police.
• That the setting perseveres until there is an adequate answer for the absence.
• There is recognition of the increased vulnerability of disabled children and the need to have heightened awareness.
• Parents are made aware of the policy and issue a reminder to them about what you will do if you are not notified of an absence.
• Staff are made aware of the circumstances of Chadrack Mulo’s death and contribute to the policy review.

Death of 4-year-old boy prompts calls for review of schools’ absence approach

The post BANDNEWS – BACK ISSUES: Learning from the death of four year old Chadrack Mulo appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From JULY 17

Does your setting have a robust and tested Lockdown Procedure? We recommend all settings consider having a Lockdown Procedures as a sensible response to any external or internal incident which has the potential to pose a threat to the safety of children and staff in the setting. It would be used when it would be more dangerous to evacuate a building than to stay inside and involves getting everyone inside, keeping them there safely and preventing anyone or anything entering. Procedures should aim to minimise disruption whilst ensuring the safety of everyone and might be activated in response to any number of situations, for example:

• A reported incident/civil disturbance in the local community (with the potential to pose a risk to staff and pupils in the school);
• An intruder on the school site (with the potential to pose a risk to staff and pupils);
• A warning being received regarding a risk locally of air pollution (smoke plume, gas cloud etc);
• A major fire in the vicinity of the school;
• The close proximity of a dangerous dog roaming loose.

Once you have developed your procedure, we would advise practising it regularly and have it displayed in your setting alongside your evacuation procedure.

Here at BAND, we are in the process of developing a sample Lockdown Procedure for settings to use. If you would like a copy or would like to speak to somebody about Lockdown Procedures, please contact one of the Development and Support Team.

The post BANDNews-Back Issues: Lockdown Procedure appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From JULY 17
So many places to go, how can you make sure your playscheme trip goes really well?

The first question to ask is what are the children at your setting interested in? What are their ideas for outings? Have you asked them? Are there any individual requirements you need to consider? The best trips are fun, exciting and provide new experiences for children.

When considering a trip it is important to think how far away is it by coach, (are we there yet? ) minibus or public transport. I think that an hour each way is the maximum for a standard day trip, much further and there needs to be a really good reason and/or negotiation with children, parents and staff about a longer day. When booking transport check that it has all the safety features you would expect.

There are many lovely venues out there, ask yourself, does this place have something for every age and ability I am taking? What is the cost and is there a group discount? Always make your most chatty persuasive team member sort the booking.  Do a variety of trips; some low cost, some with entry fees. Are there places at the venue to have packed lunches and meet up? Are there toilets? A lot of attractions can send you their risk assessment; otherwise you might have to make a planning trip to do your own. This is particularly important if you are visiting  woods or rivers, so you know where the hazards are and what to do about them. These can be fantastic free outings, but do you know where the path with the steep drop is at Blaise?

OK, so next, how many children and how many staff are you taking? It may be that the transport may restrict the numbers going, or it may be the number of staff you have available, or the activity itself, e.g.: if  you were going to take some of the older children mountain biking or abseiling the instructors will probably keep the group between 10-15. We would recommend you work to a ratio of 1 staff member to 5 children as standard on trips and take into consideration any children who may have needs or behaviour issues as they may need additional staff members. Make sure you have a first aider on every trip.  Give every staff member a named group of children they are responsible for, it’s a lot easier to quickly check you still have everyone. Trying to get a group of 40 to stand still when excited is a thankless task. Staff will need to know if it is a full day out that they will not be having a lunch break, but eating with the children. If you know a child will need extra help think about how that can be arranged.

Get permission from parents/carers for everything you are going to do! Let parents/carers know what to send with the children to make the day run well, (wellies for the woods, cossies & towels for the beach), as well as packed lunches & drinks. Decide what you are going to do about sun cream, will you buy it or ask parents to send it? Get your trip payments upfront and give parents times of departure and arrival back at the setting & a contact number.

So, on the day itself, you might feel like you are planning a military campaign not a fun day. Take child contacts, registers, first aid kit and any medication needed, water, sick bags, spare clothes, wipes/tissues, rugs/ground sheet, mobile phone (charged and with local emergency numbers preloaded). If you have hi viz jackets, club t-shirts, club hats or even badges make sure the children/staff are wearing them. This will help you keep an eye on your group, but will also help identify a child if they get lost. Try really hard not to lose them, this means you taking a register on arrival at your base, so you are clear how many you are taking, count children (in their groups) on to the transport and count regularly through the day. Obviously, count them again before you get on the transport home. If the group is split up during the day (e.g.: going round the zoo, as everybody wants to see different animals, arrange meeting points and times. Try to be prepared for “things happening”, a child may get upset, get hurt or behave in challenging way, so needing individual time & attention, have you planned capacity and strategies in your team to deal with this? E.g : reallocating the groups to put an extra child in each.

When you are out and about, support the children to really enjoy themselves. Encourage, be enthusiastic and respond to their experience. You might be the first people to see that child encounter a penguin in real life; you might be the first person to see them climb a tree.

So it’s all over, phew! You didn’t lose anyone and it was the staff  who got sunburnt and you can’t talk anymore from all the singing on the bus coming back. Now, find out from the children and parents what they thought of it, would they want to go again and why? You could do formal evaluation forms, but also you could ask the children if they want to paint pictures, write stories or make up songs about the trip. You will soon find out what they thought. Also ask the staff team, is there anything they would change to improve trips in the future? Put all that feedback into planning the next day out.

https://www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/things-to-do/south-west/somerset-and-bristol/bristol

The post BANDNews – Back issues: A Grand Day Out appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

Lynsey Elliott, Manager of Becket Hall, kindly let BAND join her on one of their visits and it’s clear that the model she and Osbourne Court have created would be transferable to other settings wishing to explore this area. The children and residents take care of each other and their enjoyment in  shared time was touching to observe through-out the visit. Several of the residents repeatedly expressed how much the visits meant to them, how much they enjoyed being with the children and how, for many, it was the highlight of their week. The children were naturally leaning on chairs and wheelchairs to gather round residents; saying they liked playing there, and drawing and one particular resident who is funny because he pulls funny faces!

Lynsey shared this feedback about a general visit (names have been changed) and how they set it up – if you would like to explore a similar project in your setting, Lynsey is happy to talk to you, and you can also call BAND who will be putting together some information about this area, she explains:

‘Each morning our pre-school children check the bus poster to see if their name has been stuck on it, signifying if it is their turn to visit the care home. The disappointment is clear when it’s not their turn, but they are quick to remind themselves they will get to go next time then as it will be their turn then.‘You have to be really careful and gentle with the old people cause they can die really easily’ says one pre-schooler to another, ‘Oh ok’ the peer replies without question. Another child adds ‘yeah, and you have to talk really loudly to Jilly because only one of her ears works.’

Today we are taking a child with us to visit residents at Osbourne Court elderly Care home who has never been before, and so we are using circle time to open up a dialogue to discuss what to expect, with our regular visitors explaining the ‘who’s who’ at the care home. The children openly talk about Olive who is blind in one eye, and can only see a little bit out of the other, ‘you have to stand in front of her when you talk to her, but she has a lovely guide dog teddy’ says J. Olive is 83, which the children recognise as a much bigger number than their age! She has been educating the children on her journey which included having guide dogs all her life, but now she has just a bear as there are no dogs allowed in the home.

This honest and open communication began around three visits in, when curiosity got the better of one child who had to ask why ‘Maisie’s and Jilly’s’s chairs have wheels but no one else’s does?’ Rather than answer in hushed tones, we said let’s go and ask, so that’s exactly what we did, and both women had different reasons for their wheel-chairs, with Maisie showing us that she could in fact walk, but just not all the time as it makes her very tired.

As a manager our initial challenge was finding a care home to take us, but we expect the coverage of our success will open up more care homes to this initiative. Like early years their workload and demand is high, and the press not always on their side, and so after meeting with the senior staff of the care home to discuss the purpose of our visits, and seeing that they shared our vision we knew it was the right setting for us. We began by sharing risk assessments, and once in place we were able to begin our regular visit.

Although children are always supervised by our nursery staff, all the care home staff are also enhanced DBS checked for both adults and children due to visitors that come into the care home. All the care home Staff are first aid trained, and are also trained in areas such as equality and diversity as well as being incredibly knowledge-able about the residents and any conditions they might have, which means they are able to appropriately support the visits.

On a typical day, we loosely plan a topical activity to open up the channels of dialogue between the residents and the children, which encourages working together. However more often this is a by-product of the real learning and understanding, which is opening up the children’s minds to differences between each other, while giving youthful and fun visitors to the residents, who for many the children are their only visitors. Initially we took different children each week, however we found that some residents found the change confusing and so, we work on a rotation of taking familiar children, and introducing new children gradually each week. Children are always given the choice of whether they wish to go, and we have had several children who did not want to return, but the option is always given to them should they wish to give it another go. Likewise some residents don’t join us each week, but we certainly have some regulars who never miss a visit.

We usually round off our visit with a familiar story, and have purchased large books which the residents can remember from their own childhoods, such as The Gingerbread Man, Jack and the Beanstalk etc, which means the residents can retell the stories from memory should one of them wish to lead the story that week.

Once established the paperwork is minimal, and reward endless. Our children have become considerate and respectful to others and are becoming aware and accepting of each other’s boundaries and differences.

We have found that parents have become more involved, with some planning to continue the visits after the children have left for school, and many looking forward to their child joining the pre-school to begin these visits.

We now consider these visits as integral to our learning programming, encouraging development in Understanding the World as well as their Personal, and Social and Emotional development, and hope that many others will consider an initial visit to see if it would work them. For those, I would be more than happy and open to discussing the process of setting this up should any settings wish to do so.”

You can watch some of our visit via Points West

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsBP9Zh0FOw&t=4s

And The One show covered our journey here, you can view the video on the care homes public facebook page:

www.facebook.com/FourSeasonsHealthCare/videos/1228060813973565/

The post BANDNews – Back issues: Building Relationships Across Generations appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From MAY 2017

In recent years, we’ve heard a lot about the importance of playing outside and being able to run around for children’s development. Further neuroscience research continues to back this up, yet children are still leading incredibly sedentary lives.

If we observe young children we see they wriggle, fidget and roll around at any opportunity. As they get older they throw themselves around making all sorts of complex and unusual shapes with their bodies, learning to balance, jump, swing and climb. It is a natural and biological drive to behave this way; it helps children to learn – and not just about movement.

There’s a part of the brain which sits at the base of the back of the skull, called the cerebellum. It literally needs variety of movement to function effectively. The cerebellum is responsible for storing information about, predicting, planning and correcting movements. Because of its role in this, the cerebellum also supports cognitive development. So, in this way we can see that movement is important for more formal learning tasks. Consider how many adults say that they like to doodle while learning or they prefer to learn by doing, yet we continue to ask children to sit still behind a desk. Furthermore, sitting still actually tires children out more than using up their energy in physical activity.

Both the body and brain crave movement, the more complex and novel the better. Research has shown that this type of movement stimulates the brain more, increasing synaptic connections which keep the brain young and agile. Once learned, brain effort and energy decreases so new movement and new learning needs to take place for the brain to continue working at the same level. The human body adapts incredibly quickly. This also means that it doesn’t matter if you never master something; it’s the trying that matters!

This leads to the question of, if we apply this to children, why not to ourselves as adults? We need to keep moving too and in novel and complex ways as this too has been show to keep adult brains healthy as well as increase overall health and wellbeing.

So get involved and crawl, run, jump and climb with the children in your setting when asked. It’ll make you laugh and be good for your health! It’ll clear your head and you’ll have greater ability to focus too. It’ll improve your balance and agility and may even prevent injury in years to come!

Want to know more?
See the article in Nursery World January 2017 or
www.thebioneer.com/movement-triggers-learning-brain-loves-parkour/
Or watch this TED talk
www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains/transcript?language=en

The post BANDNews-Back issues: Movement in Mind appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From MAY 2017

Anew report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests that the governments’ proposal to allow local authorities to retain 100% of their Business Rates could help tackle inequality of access to childcare.
Although the report acknowledges that sufficiency of high-quality, flexible childcare is an issue across the country, it focuses on London which it says faces unique challenges in terms of affordability, inequity and undersupply: there are only 32 childcare places for every 100 children under five.
As a result of these factors, London’s maternal employment is the lowest of any region in the UK with 40% of unemployed mothers saying that childcare is a key barrier to getting a job. Low maternal employment is a key driver of child poverty with associated impact on the development, health and wellbeing of children, it also suppresses regional and national economic growth.

The report claims that £1.43 billion of annual public funding for childcare in London is spent in messy, complex ways and delivers poor value for money. Thethree main forms of funding (in-kind support such as free childcare places, income top-ups such as tax credits, and direct local authority funding such as funding for Sure Start children’s centres and free or subsidised nursery schools) are a mix of supply-side and demand-side funding, which is handled by four different government departments before reaching parents and LAs.  IPPR proposes a single supply-side funded grant for childcare providers in London to replace the current complex array of income top-ups, grants and in-kind support.

So could this system work for Bristol and other areas of the country? Key to the whole discussion is whether the 100% Business Rate Retention proposal makes it onto the statute books of the government. It’s possible there could be huge winners and losers with such a proposal, since some areas are able to generate far more in Business Rates than others.

While many may see this as a windfall for local authorities in reality replacing much central government funding with their own Business Rates would leave authorities with a huge list of services to directly fund, with childcare trying to fight it’s way to the top of that list.

FFi: http://www.ippr.org/publications/the-future-of-childcare-in-london

The post BANDNews-Back issues: Rates Boost Childcare Equality? appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

From MAY 2017
A lthough the national minimum wage and living wage levels increased in April, research by the DfE in 2016 and more recently by the Family & Childcare Trust suggests that up to 20,000 nursery workers or 1 in 10 of the workforce are being paid below the minimum level they’re legally entitled to.

Earlier this year when the first major ‘named & shamed’ list of
employers was published 22 childcare providers were subject to enforcement action by HMRC after being found to be in breach of the legislation. Employers can face fines of up to 200% of the amount of arrears owed!

Employees should make sure they’re getting what their owed, employers should make sure they’re paying at least the minimum levels that apply.

Visit the ACAS page on minimum wage rates to check the rates: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.asp

The post BANDNews-Back issues: Short Changed? appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.

Looking for an activity theme over the next few months?  How about focusing on space to celebrate the European Space Agency’s (ESA) six month ‘Principia’ mission.

The mission began in December 2015 when ESA Astronaut Tim Peake, NASA Astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian Cosmonaut Commander Yuri Malenchenko arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). Tim is the first professional British Astronaut to go into space and, according to ESA, he will be working on lots of experiments, including growing crystals in space and seeing how the human brain changes to deal with stressful situations

Tim hopes that his Principia mission will inspire children to discover more about space, so here are some ideas and resources to get you started:

Celebrate women in space: Tim is the first British Astronaut in space but Dr Helen Sharman was first British person in space. Helen is a British chemist and was the first woman to visit the Russian Mir space station in 1991. No woman has set foot on the moon yet– can you right this in your setting? Create a mixed gender crew to get the first female up to the moon!

Train like an astronaut: NASA has a large number of resources to encourage children to get fit and improve coordination by training like an astronaut. There are mission handouts and videos of astronauts explaining why fitness and each particular activity is important and children are encouraged to measure their progress in a mission journal. Ideas on the website include agility astro courses and practising crab walking to ensure you can complete a space walk.  There is also a section on useful adaptations to activities to ensure that all children can join in.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/trainlikeanastronaut/activities/index.html

NASA also has a kids section with downloadable colouring sheets and other activities.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html

Create your own space suit: Have a selection of scrap material and encourage children, in teams, to create their own space suit. It needs to be as warm and as protected from cold as possible to protect astronauts from the extreme cold in space! Astronauts also have a kind of notebook on their arm with useful instructions in and a mirror so that they can look up into their helmet and check everything is ok. What will children in your setting have as their instructions? Tim took a photo of his children out on his first space walk so that they could be in space with him. Who will children in your setting choose to take into space with them?

Make rocket packs: Use 2 litre drinks bottles, spray paint them silver and use a glue gun to attach felt

or paper flames. Fuller instructions are here! http://www.doodlecraftblog.com/2012/04/super-sci-fi-rocket-fueled-jet-pack.html

Design your own mission badge: The ‘Principia’ mission badge was designed by a 13 year old; what can children in your setting devise?

Experiment like an astronaut: pick some science experiments to try on gravity, force, growing food! Astronauts on ISS will be carrying out a range of science experiments so any will do. See our article on British Science Week for ideas!

Websites: Follow Tim’s progress on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ESATimPeake/

The European Space Agency website has a kids section with lots of information and they run a monthly  drawing competition as well – maybe your setting could enter! http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/index.html

Japanese Space Agency http://iss.jaxa.jp/kids/en/index.html

The post Spaced Out!: Space activities for kids appeared first on Bristol Association for Neighbourhood Daycare.