EYP Diary - gearing up for Early Years Teacher

We had three pathways moving to assessment this month – Graduate Entry Pathway, Undergraduate Entry Pathway and Undergraduate Practitioner Pathway. The candidates who have been to assessment have all been moderated and notified that they have all met the requirements and have become Early Years Professionals. These candidates represent the last of the Early Years Professionals who were being trained at the University.

We’ve certainly seen a busy period since January 2012, when we ushered in a new era of EYPS training. Initially we had 39 Professional Standards and a new assessment process, including a development review and shorter setting visit. From September 2012 the eight new Professional Standards were introduced with 31 sub measures, which were the minimum requirement of the standards.  The team of lecturers, mentors and assessors have worked tirelessly to support all of the candidates in training. We had the continued support of our Consortium Project Office and Consortium Partners and have all collaborated to ensure candidates receive a similar experience and are assessed in a standard way.

I am honoured to have been involved with the wider team and the candidates in training and am thrilled by the numbers who have been successful. We have a grand total of 71 candidates who have met the requirements since January 2012

Moving forwards to Early Years Teacher Status we have been working to amend pathways and documents to meet the requirements of the new Teachers’ Standards (Early Years). I will be arranging a training session for assessors in November for us to consider the new standards and how we are going to assess these.

LOOKING FORWARDS

The Early Years Teacher Status training  will build on Early Years Professional Status and I intend that the holistic professional working with babies, toddlers, young children, families and with colleagues (in settings or multi-agency) will not be lost – leadership and personal practice will still be core to our training. The training will encourage critical evaluation and reflection of current practice and policy to allow the trainees to be able to apply this to their own contexts. By doing this I hope that trainees will be able to support and improve practice within their settings to provide children with the best support, care and education while in the early years.  

Early Years Professionals have already shown their worth to settings as  research evidence has shown they encourage the development of best practice and positive child-adult interactions, and their leadership is key. In addition reports from Ofsted have detailed that settings with Early Years Professionals have seen higher Ofsted ratings.

I am sure that Early Years Teachers can continue this positive impact and will work in collaboration with Early Years Professionals and the wider workforce to facilitate this.

I hope you all have a restful summer and I will be back teaching the next generation of graduate leaders from 2 September 2013!