Nursery World Show: All together now!

Every facet of the early years community is represented at the Nursery World Show 2011 and it promises to be a unique opportunity to meet sector professionals, tune into new ideas and check out the latest services and products.

EXHIBITORS

High-profile nursery groups are out in force this year. Childbase will be exhibiting with a view to meeting potential employees and as a company which currently features in the Sunday Times Best 100 companies to work for, it clearly has much to offer. Casterbridge Nurseries (right) is aiming to meet qualified childcare professionals and potential apprentices, while Bright Horizons and Asquith Nurseries will be explaining the benefits of their respective organisations, and how practitioners are supported to fully develop their careers. 

Companies that support nurseries in their day-to-day business are continuing to develop their services. HR4 Nurseries (right), for example, specialises in providing practical advice and support on employment contracts, policy, new legislation and much more.

Managers will be interested in Call Parents, which could revolutionise the way they communicate with their customers. This automatic communication system allows settings to update parents by e-mail, text and automated phone calls.

For all those nurseries who are determined that 2011 will be the year they launch a website, Schools Wire says it has a product that makes it easy. Using its web-based programme, pictures and videos can be uploaded to create a site that is informative and a strong promotional tool.

In the current climate, all nurseries will want to ensure they are fully covered and the best insurance deals are all about added-value benefits. Morton Michel, for example, offers a range of benefits through its Childcare Club, while Pound Gates is on hand to talk about its 'working partnership' package.

THEATRE STAGE AND WORKSHOPS

Once again, the live theatre stage will provide a hub for the exhibition, with demonstrations from leading early years trainers, consultancies and resources specialists.

Sue Gascoyne of Play to Z is back to wow audiences with her demonstration of how to use sensory-rich resources, comparing the play potential of muddy puddles with treasure baskets. She will be inviting visitors on stage to help lead the training experience.

How playground equipment can deliver risk and challenge for growing children while also being safe and robust is demonstrated by Playforce, which says its successful delivery over the years has been based on input from its customers.

Teachers2Parents is also up on stage, promoting its web-based text messaging system. This enables nursery managers to communicate with large numbers of parents through instant personalised text messages, and can be used to convey urgent information and reminders or updates.

TTS will be demonstrating its expanded range of early years ICT products along with the new Tuff-Cam 2, its latest child-friendly digital camera and movie camera.

Intelllident will be demonstrating a range of large-scale educational aids that bridge the gap between digital content and the physical world.

Throughout the two days of the show there will be a packed schedule of workshops focusing on Enabling Environments. Mindstretchers is inviting visitors to find out how they can re-connect children with nature and fuel their learning through real-world and multi-sensory, outdoor environments. Inside-Out Nature and Community Playthings will also provide informative sessions on how the environment supports and extends young children's learning through both planned and spontaneous experiences.

TRAINING

Getting up to speed with training opportunities and qualifications will be a priority for visitors to this year's show.

The benefits of flexible learning are explained by The Childcare Company, which in addition to full courses now offers a range of short courses endorsed by CACHE. Its Laser Learning programme allows students to access its courses online and progress at their own pace.

The growing popularity of distance learning is reflected in the increasingly wide range of options provided by the Open University and the National Extension College. Practitioners can find out how to take their first steps to an early years career, enhance an existing specialism or move into new areas.

The Cass School of Education at the University of East London (left) offers a wide range of innovative programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, which prepare people for careers in early childhood education, teaching, youth and community work.

When it comes to outdoor learning, Inside-Out Nature (right) has a track record in helping settings to make the most of their  outdoor potential. Its services include accredited outdoor practitioner/forest school training, a wide range of CPD courses, whole-setting development and accredited residential courses in Denmark, where the company is based.

With short training courses provided by Action Kids, practitioners can hone their skills in movement play and devise activities in which every child can participate.

With the free entitlement being extended to disadvantaged two year-olds, professional expertise for this age group will be much in demand. With this in mind, Pen Green Research is keen to talk to visitors about its new three-day course, Are You Making a Difference to Two-Year-Olds? This addresses the need for very young children to form relationships with both peers and adults.

For those seeking guidance on how to progress, Develop EPB can offer apprenticeships, advice on careers, qualifications and potential progression pathways.

To guide students' studies, Hodder Education publishes Early Years and Child Care titles from GCSE to Level 4. In partnership with CACHE, it says it is the resources provider for CACHE Level 2 Certificate and Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People's Workforce.

RESOURCES

Community Playthings is debuting its new Compact Drama Centre. This meets demand for a smaller centre which is suitable for very young children. It creates a cosy space to climb into, and even the youngest toddlers can help at clean-up time.

Action, rhymes and songs are used by Tumble Tots' Leaps and Bounds programme, which is all about developing children's agility, balance, co-ordination and language development.

Little Linguist will be showcasing products from its new Multicultural Early Years catalogue. Visitors can sample multilingual songs and posters, dual language storybooks in over 30 languages, and world music and books for learning foreign languages.

If you want to bring your wall charts and stickers to life with sound and song, check out Mantra Lingua's stand. It is showing its TalkingPHONICS product, which enables children to record and hear themselves instantly, encouraging sound discrimination and early phonics.

The Giant Polydron House Builder gives full rein to children's imagination when it comes to construction, and is a key product for Nexus (left) this year. The kit contains enough pieces for children to build a house, skyscraper, a church or any building of their choice, and it can be used indoors or out.

Another construction resource includes Mindstretchers' Bag of Potential Metal Pebbles, which are ergonomic, abstract shapes for children to sort, stack and line up.

Meanwhile, making the most of your whiteboard can mean that more children have an opportunity to engage with ICT. Express Publishing now offers software titles which can turn the average whiteboard into an interactive computer screen.

OUTDOOR PLAY

Artificial grass supplier Trulawn is launching a new range of coloured grass that it says provides a safe, soft outside play area, while NovaPlay will show its range of bold wet-pour rubber surfaces.

TigerMulch is being promoted as a low-cost synthetic option which is quick and easy to install and requires little maintenance. Made from recycled tyres, it resembles wood chip. Manufacturer Star Rubber says the colour stays on it and there is no shrinkage.

Sovereign Play Equipment (right) has new additions to its range, which spans playground graphics and play panels, nursery towers and sandpits.

Teepees offer a magical enclosed space with a wide variety of uses year-round. A new model supplied by Handmade Places has two entrances, made to be just big enough for adults to get through but small enough for children to feel at home. It can be fixed to the ground or freestanding, and its decorative engravings can be customised.

For robust bespoke or off-the-shelf outdoor equipment and furniture, Fawns Recreational is a market leader. Its range of themed climbing equipment, role-play fixtures and attractive shelters is continually updated.

SEMINARS

Hear the experts

Choose from an exciting line-up of speakers over two days with insights into some of the liveliest topics for the sector, plus a first-time seminar on running a business, previewed by Ruth Thomson

Visitors to the Nursery World Show will be able to sign up to an extended seminar programme presented by leading experts from across the early years sector.

The broad themes for this year's seminar programme are:

• - best practice under the EYFS framework
• - early years training
• - government policy.

Kicking off the two-day seminar programme will be inclusion expert Mary Dickins, a writer, consultant and senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University. She wrote Nursery Word's popular series 'The A to Z of Inclusive Practice' and in her seminar she will look at principles and practice for creating an inclusive environment for children in the early years.

Also among the first day's speakers will be Ann Gross, director for Early Years, Extended Schools and Special Needs Group at the DfE, giving an overview of government policy for the early years sector. And shedding light on the latest developments in early years training will be a representative of the CWDC.

In 'Safeguarding: what to look out for, how to respond', Ann Norburn, training and development consultant, NSPCC National Training Centre, will set out the role and responsibilities of early years practitioners in protecting children from harm.

This will be followed by a joint presentation by Joanne Vallis, Early Years Improvement Team manager for Warwickshire local authority, and Vikki Holroyd, director of WEAVE Recycle, a resources and training centre. Within the theme of 'enabling environments', they will be exploring the importance and use of open-ended materials across the six areas of learning and development.

Advice on 'Running a nursery kitchen' will be presented by Jane Harrison (right), owner of Red Hen Children's Day Nursery,  winner of the Nursery World Nursery Food Award 2009.

Alice Sharp, managing director of training centre Experiential Play, and director of resource company Wonderbox, specialising in interactive products for use with children under three, will be looking at the importance of sensory play for the under-threes, and in a later seminar at the importance of song, rhyme and story in children's language development.

Rounding off day one will be Jennie Lindon (below), child psychologist, early years consultant, author and recipient of the Nursery World Lifetime Achievement Award 2010.

Jennie is taking three seminars this year. In her Friday session, 'Child behaviour: positive approaches and strategies', she will be looking at why early years practitioners need to put adult-child relationships at the heart of their strategies for working with children.

In 'Understanding children's individual learning journey', she will be setting out an individual approach to assessment through observation and documentation of children's personal learning journeys.

The final subject that she will be addressing is that of risk and challenge in young children's learning. Here she will be looking at the place of risk in children's learning, ways to introduce challenge into Enabling Environments, and the important messages to give to parents about health and safety.

Also presenting two of Saturday's seminars is early years consultant and author Penny Tassoni (right), who will be discussing  how to plan for children's language development and set them on the path to becoming fluent speakers.

The focus for her second seminar of the day will be mathematical development and how to plan an environment that promotes children's mathematical thinking.

Other speakers include Jill Barnes, director of portfolio development at CACHE, who will bring delegates up to date with the developments in early years training - in particular, the new Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications and their implications for workforce development and career progression.

Jenny Spratt, head of Early Years and Childcare Services at Peterborough local authority, will examine 'Core values: the essentials of good early years practice'. Diane Corr and Gill Bowmaker, early years advisers with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, will discuss how to build on 'children's experiences at home and to value parents' unique knowledge of their children'.

NEW THIS YEAR - BUSINESS SEMINAR

At this year's show we will be running our first business seminar, designed to help owners and managers of early years settings meet the challenges of a tougher economic climate in 2011.

The half-day seminar starts with a look at sector trends and measures that some nurseries are now taking in response to the 2010 Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review. Presenting this sector overview will be Courteney Donaldson (right), director of specialist property agent and adviser Christie + Co.

Next up will be Jacqui Smith and Katie Clipston (below right), both regional development managers for the National Day Nurseries Association. They will report on how nurseries are adapting to the extended free entitlement and will offer strategies on how to make the 15 hours 'free' provision work for your setting.

After a mid-morning coffee break to give you the chance to network and ask the experts, marketing expert Ian Brodie will explain how to 'get more clients in less time, even if you hate marketing and selling' - essential advice at a time of greater competition between settings amid rising unemployment and a squeeze on families' budgets.

SIGN UP

The business seminar costs £65, good practice seminars £15. To see the full programme, to register for the show or sign up for the seminars, visit www.nurseryworldshow.com