EYP case study: Small group 'thinks big'

Childcare has always been my passion. After qualifying as an NNEB in 1993 I worked as a nanny and then as a nursery nurse in private day nurseries. I have seen my career progress with the support of my current employers Portico Day Nurseries.

After completing my foundation degree in Early Years at St Helens College / Edge Hill University I went on to complete a Certificate in European Early Years Management at Liverpool Hope University.  I then went on to achieve my EYP status in May 2008.

My experience of achieving EYPS gave me the confidence to put myself forward for the position of nursery manager at our newest setting at the time – Portico at Moss Bank – for which I had helped pull together a portfolio and had presented to the board members alongside the directors of the company to win the tender.

For the last three-and-half-years I have been the manager and have seen my role grow and branch out into other things. I have presented lectures at Edge Hill University for playworker students and now give in house training to the staff within our company. I have also reviewed our planning, observation and assessment systems as we entered the new era of the EYFS in 2012.

A NEED FOR A NETWORK

St Helens doesn’t have a great many EYPs like other boroughs so at the beginning I was finding my way on my own. I had mentored a student in our setting who achieved her EYP status, so together we just plodded along.

A position was put in place by the local authority for an EYP network group co-ordinator. This position only lasted for a short while but it enabled a small group of EYPs to come together.
There were seven of us. We met regularly and had the opportunity to attend a couple of conferences and some training. Slowly we all drifted apart due to work commitments.

Over the last year or so I have been trying really hard to get us all back together. After all the government cuts I felt really disheartened with our status and what it meant for our future and I felt we had to do something to build up our confidence and continue to use our status positively for our settings, and the children and families who attend.

We also needed to find our place within the local authority, as we all work closely with the early years team in St Helens. I sent an email to all the settings in St Helens to try and find out which settings now had an EYP and explained that I wanted to start the network group again.

There are currently five of us in our network group. These are Laura Ashton (Brooklands Day Nurseries), Sue Swain (Building Blocks) and Vicki Cardwell (Portico Day Nurseries). My fellow group members all felt the same way as I did and now we meet regularly and discuss practice and issues. After many meetings with Mavis Smith, the leader for Quality and Inclusion I think we have really found our place and our voice. We were subsequently asked to work with them on the progress check at two years – and come up with a process that we could share with the rest of St Helens.

We used the ‘Know How Guide’ and met regularly throughout the summer to discuss the implications of the check for our settings. We looked at how to revise policies and procedures, scheduling of the checks, training staff, informing parents and have come up with some formats to record the check. It’s been so beneficial and such a valuable task and experience for us all as we have all supported each other to come up with the best possible practices surrounding the check. We feel really proud that we can share it with the other settings and practitioners in St Helens.

SHARING THOUGHTS

This has culminated in us presenting a workshop at the St Helens annual Early Years Conference on 28 September about the progress check at two years, where people such as Frank Field spoke about school readiness. It enabled us to share our thought processes and results of our meetings with other practitioners from St Helens , and hopefully support them on carrying out the checks in their settings.

We are all excited about our next meeting and have really come together. I feel it’s only onwards and upwards from here ­ we may be a small group of individuals but feel we can have a big impact – think big is now our motto.