Special educational needs is an area of the standards she is currently working hard to meet, as she explains.
The Gateway Review is imminent and the pressure is on. This is our next assessment day which has to be passed in order to move on to the next stage of the course.
The day will consist of an in-tray exercise, a personal interview, a presentation of a change made within our setting, and a discussion to follow the presentation, analysing what constitutes best practice for effective change. The most dreaded item of all will be a role-play interview with an actor over a staffing problem.
We have had to submit a piece of writing which focuses on how confident we feel about the 39 standards to be achieved in order to gain EYP status. This will form the basis of our personal interview. I identified that I needed to gain more experience and knowledge in the area of special educational needs and as such, I am due to undergo some personalised training with my mentor, who, very fortunately for me, is a Foundation Consultant. Her role encompasses that of an early years SENCO for Wirral local authority. This will make me more aware of the processes regarding policies and procedures and the 'graduated approach', which is implemented when the local authority becomes involved with a child who has special educational needs.
After a discussion with the nursery manager at my setting, she is helping me to gain practical skills that can be implemented within the workplace. I recently attended a workshop with a speech and language therapist and am now in a position to improve my communication skills with those children who use sign language. Although my vocabulary in this area is limited, it is all relevant to key areas such as snack time, story time, action songs and playtime. In Liverpool there is the option to take a free two-day speech and language course, and this may occur in other local authorities as well.
The autumn term is my favourite of all. Not only do the children have the pleasure of tramping through the parks, crunchy leaves underfoot, there are Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas and other religious festivals to look forward to, and a plethora of activities. The only dilemma we face is what to choose to do first.
Further information on the Early Years Professional course see cwdcouncil.org.uk.
