I was in a virtually indentical situation to you last year. Have been out of teaching for 5 years (FS and KS1 - 12 years experience) and am now living in an LEA where I've never taught so am not 'known' IYSWIM.
I had applied for a few part time jobs, but although I got a couple of interviews both jobs went to NQTs (I'm through threshold so expensive and my teaching felt really 'rusty' and not fluent or confident).
I chatted to a couple of local head teachers about the situation and they both recommended doing a 'return to teaching' course partly because it looks good on an application form, showing you are serious and committed about resuming your career. It would also help get you up to date with current practice and give you the chance to actually teach again in local schools before having to do it at interview etc.
So I applied and last Spring did the same as you are planning - 6 weeks full time course.
Childcare was an issue, but they do cover the costs. And I was able to just use before and after school club so not too bad for me.
The course was in some ways brilliant and in other ways totally useless. We were a mixed Primary and Secondary group, which caused a lot of problems as the bias was towards Secondary. Our course leader was a Secondary trained AST and all her contacts were from her world which meant that all but 1 of the ASTs and advisory teachers that came to run sessions were Secondary. They did try to do nods towards Primary, and this was ok for KS2 teachers, but there was absolutely nothing on Foundation Stage during the whole course, and the new EYFS curriculum wasn't mentioned once. We did complain, but were told it wasn't an early years course . We didn't get to look at the new primary frameworks at all, which was a real bugbear of mine as that was the bit I really needed to know about.
That said, the general stuff was really useful (sessions on CPD, performance management, Every Child Matters, CAFs, behaviour management, new Ofsted framework, SEN procedures and paperwork ,application forms and interviews, fantastic ICT stuff blah blah). I did thoroughly enjoy most of the course and left it feeling confident about talking through the new major issues in education, and definitely had more confidence in actually standing in front of a class and getting on with it.
The most useful bit was the two 1-week teaching blocks that we did in schools. I pushed myself asking to take on a fair amount of teaching, and was lucky with my schools and teachers in that they let me! This was the bit where I found out all about the new frameworks and everything, actually from the teachers. I asked so many questions about planning and teaching that the poor teachers were probably glad to see the back of me. I specifically asked for one Foundation Class and one KS1 placement, so covered it all.
Once the course was finished I picked up some supply work from the schools where I'd had placements, then in the summer started applying for jobs again. I got an interview on my first try - 0.6 post - got the job and have been working since September. I do think the course helped me get the job - from having it on my CV through to helping me plan my interview lesson.
So....... some good and some bad, but I'd say well worth doing. Make sure you ask about a focus on the FS, and if it's like my course ensure you have at least one FS placement.
Please do ask anything else, this is incredibly rambly and long! Sorry.