Early years education and childcare strategy - Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Whilst Rotherham produced an annual Childcare Sufficiency Report and Action Plan, the Lead Member identified that an Early Years Education and Childcare Strategy would be best practice following training delivered by LGA Early Years Team, including keynote speaker Ann Van Dyke. In light of this, Rotherham Council has developed an Early Education and Childcare Strategy to raise awareness of this important stage of development in a child’s life and ensure oversight of the identified priorities for the borough, with a particular focus on early identification of need.

The Early Years and Childcare Service within Rotherham Council provides a high level of support to the sector, developing the offer in response to changing needs, particularly following the impact of the pandemic on both children and sustainability of the sector. The challenge was confirming the current blockages / needs in the sector and finding a concise way of presenting our plans to several different audiences to ensure wider awareness of the statutory requirements, challenges, risks and local priorities.

It was agreed that the strategy would focus on early education and childcare whilst acknowledging the wider support for early years children through health, early help and family hub developments.

We were clear what we wanted for families and what was needed to make that happen.

We want all families in Rotherham to:

Have access to affordable, high-quality childcare and early education that meets their needs.

• Be aware of the benefits of taking up an early education place and be excited about the opportunities for their children.
• Know where to find out more about the range of childcare and early education available.
• Take up their entitlement at the earliest opportunity.

We want early years and childcare providers / schools to:

• Be able to deliver sustainable, high-quality provision.
• Be flexible to meet parent needs.
• Continuously develop to maintain a high quality of delivery.
• Support all children including our most vulnerable children to develop and thrive.
• Be able to expand to meet demand.

We wanted to confirm what we thought were the main challenges / barriers to inform the strategy. We carried out a consultation with childcare providers and schools which identified their main challenges and informed our priorities.

To support the development of our document, we reviewed existing published early years and childcare strategies and found that Essex County Council had produced a document that we liked the format and style of. Although it was broader than early education and childcare, their priorities also aligned with our identified priorities. We used this as the basis for our strategy document.

We identified four aims that have been expanded into a detailed action plan which is monitored and reported on a termly basis.

The final strategy has been presented to Rotherham Council’s cabinet for approval and shared with the Improving Lives Select Commission scrutiny committee as well as the strategic director of children and young people’s services.

Strategic, political and partner awareness of the early years has increased. The supporting action plan is in the early stages of implementation, but regular reporting of progress will ensure ongoing awareness and support

Oversight of the strategy is the responsibility of the Best Start in Life steering group which includes a wide range of delivery partners and reports to the health and wellbeing board. In addition, progress on the action plan will be reported termly to the Improving Lives Select Commission.

This ensures that wider partner involvement is maintained to ensure ongoing awareness and contribution to the priorities.

• Identifying a strategy template (Essex County Council) saved a significant amount of time in developing our own format.
• Consulting with the sector at an early stage was useful as it confirmed our own priorities.
• It is worth the time and effort to articulate work that is being undertaken through development of a strategy to enable wider awareness raising and support.

Sharing the completed strategy document widely has increased awareness and contribution to our priorities.

Aileen Chambers, Head of Early Years and Childcare Service

[email protected]