Early years consultants employed by local authorities are steadily gaining more power to their elbow. Last year the Government provided funding through the Outcomes, Quality and Inclusion strand of the Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare Grant to beef up the role, with a view to these professionals increasingly becoming a key lever in quality improvement.
Early years consultants work with leaders, managers and practitioners in all types of local early years provision. Their priority is to target those settings which need support most - where outcomes for children are traditionally poorest.
According to the DCSF guidance, the consultants are there to be the main broker for quality improvement systems and processes, and to be a clearly identifiable point of contact within the LA for all settings. They are there to assist in the implementation of the EYFS and help practitioners engage with parents. They also have a focus on pedagogy and a remit to embed a culture of continuous quality improvement.
Positive relationships
Stella Louis has been in post as an early years consultant in Southwark since 2005. Since 2008 she has also been working as a Parents as Partners in Early Learning (PPEL) consultant.
'One of my priorities has been to embed good practice by sharing knowledge of attachment and brain development, or schemas, with both practitioners and parents,' she says.
'I have supported a group of parent mentors to write a booklet on play for other parents with children under five, developed and delivered training for parent mentors to become schema advocates and trainers and am establishing a Listening to Young Children's Voices network.'
Ms Louis says one of her key challenges is breaking down the barriers to better partnership working with parents. 'For me, true partnership is about sharing knowledge of how children learn with parents and being able to make distinctions between parents' education, parenting programmes, parents' rights and parents' engagement with their children's learning.'
According to Ms Louis, Southwark is putting the EYFS principles of positive relationships at the heart of its practice. 'Practitioners need to be able to reflect on how they develop partnerships and support learning in their practice,' she says.
In Southwark, early years consultants work with Foundation Stage co-ordinators and their teams on developing the links between assessment, planning and teaching for ongoing implementation of the EYFS, and link this to improving outcomes for children.
'We are committed to continuing partnerships with early years settings and improving outcomes at the end of the Foundation Stage,' says Ms Louis. 'Our priority is to reduce inequalities by focusing on children most at risk of poor outcomes and underachievement. We want to reduce the number who enter Key Stage 1 with no early learning goals and increase the number who achieve a good level of points for development.'
The Early Years Consultants' Handbook can be downloaded at www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk
