Government support and guidance is available for all………….
Department of Education (DfE) have updated their guidance on Early Years Education Recovery Plan. 2 May 2024
The government is providing a package of up to £180 million for workforce training, qualifications and support and guidance for the early years sector to help address the impact of the pandemic on the youngest and most disadvantaged children.
The programmes are designed for early years:
- practitioners
- leaders
- settings, including private, voluntary and independent organisations; childminders; school-based nurseries; and maintained nursery schools.
Designed to support all areas of the early years sector there is range of courses available to support practitioners with the continuing professional development (CPD).
There are additional resources, support and guidance available.
As part of the early years education recovery package, there are 2 offers, which focus on providing support and guidance for staff and settings.
Support and guidance includes:
Stronger practice hubs
Stronger practice hubs are a network of early years settings with expertise and knowledge of the evidence base on what works to support child outcomes, and experience of delivering effective practice.
Hubs will support settings in adopting evidence-based practice improvements and will build local networks for sharing effective practice.
Early years stronger practice hubs will be distributed across England, with an ambition of 2 hubs in each region (18 hubs in total).
It is free for setting to access the Hubs.
Hubs will focus on supporting children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
They will support settings:
- without existing access to networks or relationships with other early years providers
- looking to improve the quality of their provision
- that could benefit from high-quality professional development for staff.
Hubs will support settings in adopting and implementing well-evidenced practice improvements by:
- establishing local networks of settings to share knowledge and effective practice
- proactively sharing information and advice on evidence-based approaches – for example, through newsletters, blogs and social media
- acting as a point of contact for bespoke advice and signposting to other funded support
- working with the Education Endowment Foundation to select evidence-based programmes to fund and make available to settings.
Experts and mentors
The experts and mentors programme offers early years support, delivered either face to face or virtually, by trained experts and mentors to:
- early years practitioners
- leaders
- whole settings
The programme is aimed at settings who meet one or more of the criteria:
- been judged by Ofsted as requires improvement or inadequate in the past 3 years
- high numbers of children in receipt of early years pupil premium
- high numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities
- high numbers of children taking up the disadvantaged-2-year-old offer
The offer to early years settings includes:
- leadership support
- coaching for leaders
- mentoring for practitioners
- whole-setting support, depending on settings’ priorities and needs
A mentor will provide support to a nominated practitioner within each setting or to a small group of practitioners at one time. An expert will also support the setting leader.
Settings will receive the support of an expert and mentor for one term between September 2022 and July 2024.
Mentors will provide up to 6 hours of mainly virtual support per setting.
Experts will provide up to 3 days of face-to-face support per setting.
The programme is available nationally and is free to settings.
Early years settings can request the support of an expert and mentor using the application form on the delivery partner Pen Green’s website.
Local authorities will also nominate settings on termly basis. Settings should consult with their local authority if they believe they’re eligible for this programme.
