Welcome to the January 2026 edition of the Cheshire East Best Start Family Hub Partner Newsletter!
We hope this first newsletter of 2026 finds you and your loved ones well and that you had a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year. 
Spotlight on...
NHS to roll out chickenpox vaccine for children

The NHS’s vaccination programme is being expanded to include chickenpox (also known as varicella) for the first time to help shield young children from getting seriously ill.

From now on, GP practices will start to offer children a combined MMRV vaccine at 12 months and 18 months of age to add chickenpox to the protections against measles, mumps and rubella.

Learn more
What's on at your nearest Family Hub

Many families will find January a challenging time both emotionally and financially.  We understand how demanding Christmas time can be, and so would like to remind you to encourage your families to attend our wide variety of FREE groups throughout January. 

Find your nearest Family Hub
What's on?
Safer and Healthier Screen Time - Parent/Carer survey
Beyond is the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership's Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme. This is a partnership across the landscape with health, local authorities, and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector partners creating a social movement with a focus on early intervention and prevention.

Beyond's key priorities reflect both system-wide and Place-specific plans to support the delivery of the NHS Long-Term Plan and Health and Care Partnership's aim of giving every child the best start in life.

As part of the Beyond Programme’s Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health Workstream, we are developing best-practice guidance and actionable advice for parents and carers on safe, healthy use of screens and social media by children and young people.

To inform this work, we’ve created a survey to find out more about the challenges parents/carers experience when managing their children’s screen and social media use. If you’re a parent or carer yourself, we would be most grateful if you could complete the survey and share your experiences and insights with us. We’d also appreciate if you could share the survey with other parents and carers so that we can get as many responses as possible.

All information will be anonymous unless you choose to share your details with us.

View and share the survey with your families
We need books for young adults
   
 If you are able to donate and pre-loved books for young adults in good condition, please [email protected]

We are recruiting Social Workers

View the latest job adverts
If you would like to feature in this newsletter, please email [email protected]

Assisted by the amazing Mrs Lambden (LSA and professional cricket coach), our U13 girls (and Mia) competed in the Cheshire Schools competition which we hosted at Malbank. Considering the girls had never played before, they were amazing. Shavington dropped out today, meaning we just had to play Sandbach. We batted hard and scored 50 and then Sandbach scored 90, meaning they were victorious. Our girls were absolutely amazing and made so much progress. Any girls in the school that would like to play we will be training again next Thursday and there is an U15 Girls comp two weeks today at Malbank. 

Meet our new sports leaders team. This amazing group of students have recently been giving up hours after school to officiate primary school events and will all be involved in the upcoming house Indoor Athletics competition on Monday and will then be staying until 5.30pm to run the Cheshire Primary schools Athletics competition. They have demonstrated a high level of commitment and engagement, actively participating in a wide variety of tasks with enthusiasm. Their involvement, collaborative working and proactive attitude enhances their own learning and positively impacts younger pupils.  Well done to all involved. 

Not in the photo -  Ruby Year 8

The PE Department organised a trip for students to watch Manchester City vs. Borussia Dortmund at The Eithad Stadium in Manchester on Wednesday 5th November. The trip was only available to students who have been involved with lunchtime or after-school sports clubs or represented the school in sports activities this academic year. 

The game was brilliant, and the students conduct was just amazing!! 

This week our curent Year 11 cohort attended our sixth form open morning, where they had the opportunity to discuss their next steps with teachers and consider their options after GCSE's. Students were able to get more information on subjects they may be interested in studying further from subject teachers and hear from current sixth form students. 

Our Sixth Form Open Evening is being held on Wednesday 3rd December 6pm - 7.30pm and we hope to see lots of you there. To register your interest  please click on the link below:

https://forms.office.com/e/zcXfrgsYcB

So far this term, we have had a very busy term with sporting activities:

Cross Country at Alsager - Grace 2nd, Charlie 3rd, Tom and Lewis 10th and 11th 

Year 11 Boys Football lost 5-3 to Ruskin - Cheshire league 

Year 7 Girls Football lost 5-1 to Ruskin - Cheshire league

Year 9/10 Girls Netball beat Ruskin 43-3 

Year 8 Boys Football lost 5-2 at Painsley in the national cup 

U13 Girls Football beat Endon High 3-0 in the National cup 

U16 Girls Football lost 6-2 at Thomas Telford in the national cup 

Year 10 Boys Football lost 5-0 against Upton Chester High in the national cup 

This week so far:

Cross country at Sandbach Boys - Grace 4th, Charlie 5th 

Year 9 Boys Football lost in extra time to Thomas Adams Wem - 5-3 in the National Cup

Year 7 Boys Football lost 5-1 at Alsager in the National cup 

Year 10 Boys Football won 5-1 against the Oaks in the Cheshire league 

Year 8 Boys Football won 1-0 at Eaton Bank in the Cheshire Cup 

All girls Rugby club on Tuesday led by Crewe and Nantwich Rugby club

Today:

Year 7 Boys Football vs The Oaks in the Cheshire league

Year 10 Boys Football vs St Nicholls in the Cheshire Cup 

Well done to everyone who took part and are representing our school.