Our Associates are available to deliver bespoke support and training on implementing the EYFS reforms which came into force in September 2021.
We can offer:
As a leading member of the Early Years Coalition, we can also provide consultancy on how the Birth to 5 Matters guidance can support your implementation of the EYFS reforms.
Explore our sample courses below: contact us if you might like to commission any of these suggestions, or let us know if you are looking for something bespoke and we'd be happy to advise.
Make a booking enquiryDownload the Terms and ConditionsAims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This course is interactive and thought-provoking. Of all areas of the EYFS, teaching behaviour can be challenging and frustrating. This course gives you the space to explore behaviour and the impact it may have but will also give you practical ideas for a consistent whole team approach that keeps the child’s health and well-being as the focus.
This course is designed to deepen understanding about the links between behaviour and child development and neuroscience. It will encourage delegates to examine how they can co-regulate with children and look to support them in developing positive behaviours rather than focussing solely on behaviour management. This course will give you the confidence and knowledge to support children’s behaviours and meet their individual needs.
This course will:
Audience: Practitioners working with children in the EYFS
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
There is a CD/booklet that contains the material in this course.
Delegates will have opportunities to:
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Every child deserves the benefits that a meaningful relationship can bring. As a key person, your responsibility is to provide a secure base from which growth, exploration and resilience can occur. This course provides you with the underpinning theory of brain development and attachment and also offers a range of strategies and practices that will empower you and the child.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities:
Audience: Practitioners working with children in the EYFS
The adults working in an early years setting should be the most effective resource. The interactions that occur between adults and children can hinder or maximise progress. This two-part course will consider:
Audience: Practitioners working with children in the EYFS
This course will enable practitioners to reflect on the different purposes, expectations and outcomes of adult-led and child-led learning. Using extensive DVD material in nursery, reception and key stage 1 classes, it will explore the different benefits of adult led and child-led learning for both children and practitioners. It will consider how both ways of learning are assessed and how these assessments feed into planning. It will also explore how the role of the practitioner changes when the purpose of an activity is planned by that practitioner as opposed to being planned by the child.
Delegates will:
A range of research support to settings and schools is on offer. From family surveys to stakeholder consultation, small-scale action research to large programme evaluation, a bespoke consultancy input can be delivered depending on the research you would like to undertake or the support you may require to facilitate the project.
This consultancy support includes implementation of policy at school/setting level including changes to governance arrangements, place planning and implementation of the extended entitlement. At local authority level, consultancy can include a review of early years provision, production of guidance/resources and bespoke service delivery support. We are happy to discuss how we might look to support you within your professional context depending on your needs.
Having experience of securing funding though local and national charities and foundations, Big Lottery, Arts Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and EU programmes for education projects, the consultant can support schools and settings with grant research and bid writing from small scale projects to capital programmes. To discuss a potential application and the support you may need, please get in touch to talk through the options available.
A bespoke package of advice and guidance ranging from an audit and signposting to intensive consultancy, this flexible programme supports schools and settings to implement actions from the ‘Sustainability Jigsaw’ to support ongoing viability. We will look to tailor a package to suit your needs, appropriate to your context, so that you receive the necessary support to put into action.
We are all worried by the loss of education brought about by the coronavirus crisis and it is very tempting to push children into catching up quickly. However, it is important to remember what we know about how children learn and develop and to adhere to the guiding principles of the EYFS. This session will explore how to give time for children to recover and learn, and, how to make time as practitioners to listen and observe in order to meet children’s needs and make timely interventions
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
During this course we will draw on neuroscience and child development to explore play ideas to regulate the senses. These ideas will be particularly valuable to teach children with sensory processing difficulties, support children’s self-regulation and develop fine motor skills.
We will:
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: Birth to 5 Matters 2021 (Personal Social and Emotional Development; Physical Development; Expressive Arts and Designs); Statutory Framework for the EYFS 2021 (‘Managing Children’s Behaviour’ points 3.53-3.54); SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘The Graduated Approach’ points 5.36-5.46 and 6.44-6.56).
Audience: All Practitioners in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
This one-day course is accompanied by Musical Development Matters, free guidance written to support educators to develop their music practice and provision.
The course not only introduces participants to the guidance but also demonstrates how easily music can be incorporated into any early childhood setting without practitioners needing any previous musical knowledge or experience. This course is workshop style, fun and informative, exploring ways in which music compliments and contributes to all areas of learning and development.
Aims and objectives – participants will have opportunities to:
Audience: All Early Childhood Educators
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Audience: All Early Childhood Educators
From before the moment of birth music and movement are integral to the healthy growth of the child both as an individual and in connecting with others and the outside world. This course provides the means for practitioners to foster that growth during the baby stage, through the early years and beyond.
While it is stressed that music making is a holistic thing this course gives activities that specifically address the three prime and four specific areas of learning, the three learning characteristics and the four guiding principles specified in the EYFS.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
There is a CD/booklet that contains the material in this course.
Audience: All Early Years practitioners
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This course brings SEN support to life and is fun, practical and interactive. Practitioners will have the opportunity to think about their high-quality teaching and provision including how to build upon this to support children with different types of SEND. It will empower practitioners and give them the skills and tools to act in the first instance of early intervention. This course includes a free resource for building your own SEND toolkit.
This course invites educators to reconsider existing conceptualisations about the purpose of play to consider processes that involve internal representation that is specific to cultural and individual ethnic identity contexts. Described as a period in which children learn the language of their culture, Vygotskian theorisation suggests that between the ages of two to eight years learning about culture and ethnicity can be seen in children’s play. Whilst it may be challenging to clearly define Play, when we observe children in ‘play based settings’ there is a consensus of agreement that it is an important vehicle in which young children develop, learn, and explore socially constructed ideas from wider society.
Using play as a mediation tool for connecting ideas about how children choose to share and co-construct knowledge about their ethnic identity the course provides educators with an opportunity to consider the resources utilised within provision that facilitate discourse surrounding a raced and ethnic identity with young children.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
• powerful ‘bridge’ between children’s home and ‘school’ (Broadhead & Burt, 2012);
• mediation tool in interactions between peers and practitioners when co-constructing knowledge about ethnicity.
In recent years children’s rights to participate in matters that affect them the most has risen in prominence in research, policy, and in particular practice. Yet implementation of children’s rights can be the most challenging and yet rewarding aspects of professional practice. This course challenges educators toreflect on their current practice to examine how and in what ways their practice is shaped from the child’s perspectives.
Incorporating knowledge and understanding gained from the practitioners own experiences of working with children, the course is aimed at those individuals who wish to seek approaches associated with empowerment, self-efficacy, and giving ‘voice’ to young children.
Exploring pedagogy in participation (Formisinho & Pascal, 2016), this training asks educators to reflect on situations in which relationships and interaction are sustained via joint activities and experiences to develop approaches that are responsive to the perspectives of children.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This course encourages educators to explore contexts in which young children will be developing ideas about their ethnic identity. Coming from diverse backgrounds children enter early years settings rich in cultural knowledge (Karabon, 2017) acquired from their home & community environments. Children will make use of these cultural tools of thought and will go on to independently use them for their own purposes in their interactions with others.
This training will therefore challenge educators to reflect on sociological contexts surrounding culture, race, and ethnicity observed in pedagogical practices that impact upon and facilitate the judgements and preferences that children make about their own & others ethnic identity.
Located within the themes and principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage this training makes use of collaborative discourse to raise educator confidence to engage in the sensitives associated with ethnic/raced identity in their pedagogical practice.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
What does the SEND Code of Practice (2015) say about Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP)?
Which children may benefit from this process?
During the course, we will:
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments and Plans’ Chapter 9).
Audience: SENCOs in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
“The use of provision maps can help SENCOs to maintain an overview of the programmes and interventions used with different groups of pupils and provide a basis for monitoring the levels of intervention” (SEND Code of Practice 2015 point 6.76).
Provision maps are a useful tool to plan provision across the setting and review the impact of interventions. They can be used successfully both in schools and PVI settings.
During the course, we will draft a provision map, taking into account cohorts of children, high and low incidence SEN in the setting, budget constraints and deployment of staff.
At the end of the course participants will have a working document which could be adapted to their own specific context.
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘Use of Data and Record Keeping’ points 6.72-6.78).
Audience: SENCOs in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Audience: All Early Childhood Educators
Delegates will have opportunities to;
This highly enjoyable and accessible course focuses on ways of fostering early phonological development using carefully chosen musical activities and play. It follows the “Letters and Sounds” document Phase One. Steve recorded the CDs for A&C Black’s Singing Phonics series. While there is a focus on laying the foundations for phonics the activities are holistic and will contribute to all aspects of children’s development.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
There is a CD/booklet that contains the material in this course.
Audience: All Early Years practitioners
Sharing stories and music is arguably the primary method we have of passing culture on to our children. Including stories in our early years music making enriches the activity immeasurably. This practical workshop is about how to bring the story out in our songs and how to put music into our stories.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
The CD/ROM that accompanies this course was made with Pie Corbett and forms part of the Early Years element of his Talk for Writing project.
Audience: All Early Years practitioners
Aims and objectives:
Is bilingualism a barrier or an advantage for children with delayed language? This course aims to answer the question by exploring the current research studies on multilingualism in children with delayed language.
We will:
The course is based on current research in the studies of bilingualism, language development and neuroscience. The course also considers the influence of attachment on language development.
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: Birth to 5 Matters 2021 (Personal Social and Emotional Development; Communication and Language; Understanding the World); SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘The Graduated Approach’ points 5.36-5.46 and 6.44-6.56).
Audience: All Practitioners in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
Language development is a central concern in the education field, particularly following the recent pandemic. The new curriculum guidance and government priorities focus on language development as a precursor of children’s academic progress and a foundation for better life outcomes.
Attention and listening skills are the base of communication and allow children to successfully access new skills and thrive in a social environment. In this course, we will look at the different levels of attention and how to support their development with practical ideas.
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: Birth to 5 Matters 2021 (Personal Social and Emotional Development; Communication and Language); Statutory Framework for the EYFS 2021 (‘Managing Children’s Behaviour’ points 3.53-3.54); SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘The Graduated Approach’ points 5.36-5.46 and 6.44-6.56).
Audience: All Practitioners in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
Language development is a central concern in the education field, particularly following the recent pandemic. The new curriculum guidance and government priorities focus on language development as a precursor of children’s academic progress and a foundation for better life outcomes.
Understanding is a major component of language processing, both on a curriculum and social level. However, many children who have difficulty in this area of language are often not promptly identified in our educational settings, particularly when they are verbal.
During the course, we will:
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: Birth to 5 Matters 2021 (Personal Social and Emotional Development; Communication and Language); SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘The Graduated Approach’ points 5.36-5.46 and 6.44-6.56).
Audience: All Practitioners in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
At a time when we may think good CPD is difficult to access, we examine the notion of professional development being a truly continuous process. This session will look at numerous ways in which settings can continue their professional development programme to build effective teams and meet the needs of children and families.
Early Years settings are currently experiencing a myriad of changes. At the same time that we are dealing with the continuing implications of the worldwide pandemic, we are also about to manage the implementation of the revised EYFS. There are both practical and emotional dimensions to deal with as our teams deal with what is happening and leadership will be central to organisations navigating successfully through this.
These two sessions will consider:
Aims and objectives –
This course is run as two consecutive seminar days, then time to practice, with a third day once you have had some practice in the work place (6-8 weeks after). It is effective for all leaders and managers.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This practical one-day introductory interactive course is designed to give an introduction to the power of a coaching approach for leaders in the workplace. It provides insight into the theory behind coaching and offers useful tools that participants can take away to practice with their team/colleagues.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This practical, interactive course is designed to meet the particular needs of leaders and managers working in the early years, to strengthen practice and build leadership capacity in this vital phase of education. The course is balanced to provide useful tools for taking into your setting as well drawing on as current leadership theory.
It is best delivered as six sessions over the course of a year, and is aimed at Leaders and Managers in Early Years Settings.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
This practical, interactive course is designed to meet the particular needs of teachers working in the early years, to strengthen practice and build leadership capacity in this vital phase of education. The course is balanced to provide useful tools for taking into your school as well drawing on as current leadership theory.
It is best delivered as six sessions over the course of a year, and is aimed at EYFS Leaders in schools or Senior teachers in nursery schools.
Aims and objectives – delegates will have a brief introduction to leaders and leadership, before exploring:
• Good manager or great leader?
• The importance of TEAM
• Aspects and dimensions of quality
• Key skills and qualities to lead outside
• Key responsibilities- Developmentally Appropriate Play, COEL, PSED, Physical Development, Communication and Language and quality Interaction, Creative and Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Independence and Extending Learning, Promoting Inclusion.
• Leading Change with your team
In our busy early years settings, the SENCO role is not often given the importance it deserves and needs to fully develop into a leadership role. This course aims to:
The course will briefly look at some of the recent theories on leadership, change management and coaching.
Links to Early Years and SEND guidance: Statutory Framework for the EYFS 2021 (‘Special Educational Needs’ point 3.68); SEND Code of Practice 2015 (‘The Role of the SENCO’ points 5.52-5.54 and 6.84-6.94).
Audience: SENCOs in Early Years PVI Settings and Schools
Aims and objectives – this course will cover aspects of how nature can support:
Aims and objectives – delegates will have the opportunity to explore:
• The influence of the pioneers on Early Years
• Learning from others around the world
• Creating an ethos
• Where we are today-ethos, principles and practice
• Providing the right environment for play and learning indoors and out
• Nurturing habits, attitudes and dispositions in children and adults
• Cultivating confidence, calm independence and creativity
• To outstanding and beyond….
Aims and objectives – delegates will have the opportunity to explore:
• The importance of health and wellbeing
• Partnership with parents and the community
• Staying safe and being responsible
• Understanding food and growing
• The gardening year and how it supports the COEL
• What to grow, what to taste and what to cook
• Exciting discoveries and explorations
• Feeding fascinations!
Aims and objectives – delegates will have the opportunity to explore:
• Learning from the past
• What a child needs
• Your ethos, policies and procedures
• Organising space, time and other essentials
• Enabling environments
• Our responsibilities as leaders and managers
• Challenge and challenges for children
• What helps parents and practitioners?
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Audience: Early Years staff considering leadership and management posts or those already in them in schools and settings
“Unless children have early and frequent experience of what it feels like to understand something in depth, they cannot acquire the disposition to seek in depth knowledge and understanding – to engage in life-long learning.” -Lilian G Katz
The EYFS offers many opportunities for children to develop skills and knowledge. By offering these opportunities in strong learning environments, with knowledgeable, supportive adults and a wealth of broad learning experiences, we cultivate the conditions in which children can understand more and become competent learners.
These two sessions explore some of the concepts which promote understanding across the areas of learning in the revised EYFS and consider the sort of provision which will provide the strongest likelihood of broadening and deepening understanding.
Course Aims:
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
The central techniques that underpin and support such growth are careful listening, open questions and thoughtful feedback. Sets work best when the group is made up of participants working at peer level, which might be peers across or within an organisation – leaders, managers, practitioners (4- 7 people). Please do enquire for further information.
Delegates will have opportunities to;
Aims and objectives – delegates will have the opportunity to explore:
• Introduction to the COEL
• Deeper understanding of the Characteristics and Themes
• Unpicking what it means to play and explore, create and think critically
• Observation through child-led learning
• Documenting and sharing children’s learning
• Making links between the prime and specific area of learning
Children are “full of it” and leave us in no doubt that we need a lot of energy to keep up with them as they move, play and dance. There are very good reasons for this, and the workshop will explore why children move in the ways that they do at the different stages of their development.
This workshop will allow delegates/parents to:
This course covers from birth to five years.
Children have many ways of communicating their meaning and intention with their bodies, of “talking with the body” and telling their stories. Body movement is a child’s first language, and so dance and story are intertwined from the start.
“We sing before we talk, we dance before we walk” – P. Grendrad
This course is a practical session with plenty of fun ideas, so please come suitably dressed to move.
Delegates will have the opportunity to:
Observation tools
The session will include practical exercises, partner work, discussion and case studies.
This course covers from three to five years.
Making relationships, being able to do things and being able to think and make connections are at the heart of learning and wellbeing throughout life, and body movement underpins these essential capacities right from the start.
Active engagement of the body influences far more than we might imagine.
The content of the course will include:
Observation tools
The session will include practical exercises, DVD illustrations, and discussions.
Please come suitably dressed to move.
This course covers from birth to two years.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:
Physical activity is a must for everyone including young children and being active has a wealth of benefits. Children should not be learning to sit still and focus but using the full capabilities of movement to think and learn. This course turns learning on its head and offers fun, healthy and appropriate ways to move across the early the early years’ curriculum. It gets practitioners moving as well into to a new way of thinking about fidgeting, wiggling, wriggling and roaming.
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to feel inspired to provide improved indoor and outdoor learning experiences for all children. These will include:
This two day course is spread over consecutive days or can be separated with a gap task for Early Years leaders/managers in small groups who are keen to enhance and develop their pedagogical practice outdoors.
Aims:
Day One
a.m.
p.m.
The gap task will reflect on your current practice following the training day, with a view to bringing further ideas and feeding back at the next session.
Day Two
a.m.
p.m.
Aims and objectives – delegates will have the opportunity to explore:
• What is adventurous play?
• Other important concepts-risk, challenge, hazard
• Adventure and the Characteristics of Effective Learning
• Extending thinking through adventurous learning
• Using risk benefit assessment
• Enhancing play and learning for the creative, competent child
• Strategies to support parents and colleagues
Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities:
Audience: For those with responsibility for developing and implementing a curriculum in the EYFS. Ofsted are placing curriculum at the heart of how they will inspect the Quality of Education. This course supports professionals to articulate this aspect of their provision and to reflect on how well the curriculum matches the needs of those in their care.
Parents of young children face many pressures which can make it difficult to enjoy family life and provide the best conditions for their children to thrive. The Duchess of Cambridge recently outlined the findings of the Royal Foundation study, which has shown that parents struggle with their own well-being, feel judged and are suffering from isolation. The report also found that less than a quarter of the population understand the importance of the first five years. This course explores the issues families are facing and considers how settings can support their families to maximise the positives of bringing up young children. It reflects on how raising the confidence and knowledge of families can help children to thrive.
Aims
Outline
Get in touch to discuss your booking today: we're happy to make recommendations to fit your vision, whether a twilight session, a day course or conference, or a long-term project. Our Associates will bespoke the delivery to your professional context and requirements - whether that's in-person or virtual - to meet your training and consultancy needs.
Make a booking enquiryDownload the Terms and ConditionsEarly Education
2 Victoria Square
St Albans
AL1 3TF
T: 01727 884925
E: office@early-education.org.uk
