Child playing with building blocksChild playing with building blocks

Early Years

In this section:

Devonshire Infant School

Every child in Portsmouth deserves the best possible start in life. The Portsmouth Education Partnership is therefore committed to ensuring that all children get the best possible start through effective early nurture at home and high quality early years education.

Portsmouth is proud to have a wide range of high quality early years and childcare provision. We have approximately 90 childcare providers on non-domestic premises (e.g. nurseries and pre-schools), more than 100 registered childminders and 10 school nursery classes.  In March 2019, 98% of the registered provision has been judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding.

All settings are encouraged to take a strongly directive approach to ensuring that vulnerable children, in particular, experience a varied programme of activities. This should give a high priority to ensuring regular one to one communication with children who need it most. It should also provide as much support and encouragement as possible to help parents nurture their children’s well-being and development at home.

Early years bulletin

Read the latest issues of the early years bulletin here.

Support

Copnor Primary School

Workforce development

The 2023-2024 Early Years Training and Development Programme can be found at earlyyears.portsmouth.gov.uk.

Our approach this year, is to offer specific packages that you can purchase according to your needs and area of focus from your setting development plan. There is more onsite support, so that we can offer a bespoke setting approach which meets the needs of all practitioners in your setting.

Packages at a glance:

  • Ofsted package – £250
  • Inclusion package – £250
  • EYFS package – £250
  • Regulatory package – £350
  • Level 3 enrichment package, “going the extra mile” – £150
  • Management enrichment package – £250
  • Schools package – visit Traded Services to view prices for schools

We also have our SEND accredited courses and FREE universal package.

Moderation

EYFS profile moderation is no longer statutory, however the Early Years Advisory Teacher Team are still able to offer your school or setting EYFS assessment support and guidance.

We will be running training throughout the year to support EYFSP assessment and will be available for schools to request moderation visits on a non-statutory basis.

For more information about moderation and assessment within the EYFS and to request non-statutory support, please contact [email protected].

Developing new provision

The early years and childcare team are able to support with a range of areas including business planning, reviewing accommodation, upskilling staff to support new age groups and increasing capacity of existing provision. For further information on the range of work we are able to support please contact [email protected].

Early years funding

Early years’ education is the foundation for all future lifelong learning. The strong commitment to and high uptake of the two year old funding gives some of our most vulnerable children the opportunity to access high quality early education. One aim of this funding is to close the learning gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, and from a families perspective may enable parents to access employment and training opportunities. All three and four years olds can access early education funding supporting them to grow, develop and learn, whilst preparing for school.

The financial support that is available to parents to help with the cost of childcare is increasing. Read more on the upcoming changes here.

Additional Resources

Interventions to influence best practice and secure strong outcomes for children within the EYFS

This document has been created to support Year R practitioners and the intention is that it will evolve and grow. If you have an intervention that works effectively to develop the skills and learning of your Year R children and you would like to share this with others, please do get in touch.

Portsmouth’s Commitment to Early Language Development

We have developed Portsmouth’s Commitment to Early Language Development, explaining how early years settings, families, the council, health service providers and other partners aim to support early language development across the city.

Working in childcare

Information about working in childcare is published on the Portsmouth City Council website.