Research has shown that young children benefit from having a graduate leader in their early years setting, particularly for those children experiencing poverty or disadvantage. Supporting the development and learning of young children from birth to five requires a unique blend of skills including an in-depth knowledge of child development, an understanding of the importance of play and the ability to form positive relationships with children and their families. When you have seen an early years teacher successfully negotiate the different needs and interests of twenty two-year-olds in a room and effectively support their early literacy through book sharing and rhyme you start to understand how crucial these professionals are in the lives of our youngest children.
I first saw the benefit of graduate leaders when managing a nursery in the early 2000s, specifically seeing how our staff gained key skills and grew in confidence when they achieved the Early Years Professional Status (the forerunner of Early Years Teacher Status). I completed the programme myself and later led the development of the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) programme at Sheffield Hallam University which Claire completed.
We have both championed this status and when Claire became a nursery manager, she encouraged all her room leaders to complete the EYTS and saw the quality of teaching and care rise as a result. We now work together at the Early Years Community Research Centre and Claire leads practice across both our university nurseries.
Claire found that completing the EYTS significantly deepened her knowledge of child development which enabled her to respond more sensitively to both the children’s and family’s needs, elevating practice across the wider team within the setting. As a specialist teacher, her focus was on the holistic development of children, fostering their emotional well-being, social skills, and self-regulation alongside developing academic skills and building stronger relationships with parents to support them with their child’s development. The program also equipped her with the necessary pedagogical, leadership and management skills to move into senior leadership roles within the sector.
The new Early Years Teacher Degree Apprenticeship builds on the current EYTS model. This qualification crucially gives our future Early Years Teachers the thorough knowledge of child development they need to meet children’s individual needs and support their learning.
The degree apprenticeship will also develop trainee teachers’ leadership skills to enable them to pass this knowledge onto the teams in their settings and bring about research-informed changes in practice. The fact that the qualification can now be done as an apprenticeship opens the door for many of our current excellent practitioners to achieve this whilst still working in their setting and will also encourage new people to join the sector knowing that they can train on the job.
