Best practice features:

• EYFS reforms – Expressive arts and design
  Discover how to fuel children’s creativity across a range of mediums and contexts, and in a way that supports all areas of learning. By early years expert Penny Tassoni.
• Inclusion: Hard to say
  Practitioners are often the first professionals to identify a child’s special educational need and communicating this to parents needs to be done with sensitivity and understanding. Gabriella Jozwiak finds out about the best approach to take.
• Physical development – ‘Feeling of me’
  Founder of JABADAO, Penny Greenland, explains why movement play is an essential part of children’s exploration of the full body senses. She flags JABADAO’s latest research and the resources it offers.
• Supporting children affected by trauma – Nicole Weinstein explores how early years staff can support and nurture children in their settings affected by trauma and abuse.
• Health and nutrition
  Advice on what carers and parents should do when a child has a high temperature, especially in the light of concerns around Covid.
• Book extract
  Dip into Di Chilver’s latest professional book, How to Recognise and Support Mathematical Mastery in Young Children’s Play: Learning from the ‘Talk for Maths Mastery’.
• Special report – Montessori
  With an expansion in qualifications offered in the Montessori approach, Meredith Jones Russell explores how relevant its practice is today and how it can support the revised EYFS.
  
  In our activity section:
• Follow one setting’s introduction of a traditional cabinet of curiosities and discover how it has supported children’s explorations of the natural world. In this month’s Outdoor Calendar Julie Mountain suggests a range of activities that include looking out for migrating birds, making a compost heap, re-purposing outdoor materials and keeping a record of everything carried out. Our series on the sustainable development goals continues with a look at industry, innovation and infrastructure, while Dr Lala Manners concludes her birth to three development series looking at the importance of swimming. With children’s health at the top of the agenda, Nicole Weinstein looks at essential resources and activities for gross motor development.
  
  
  In our management section:
  
• Find out how to support staff experiencing relationship, money or parenthood problems in part 6 of our Staff Health and Wellbeing series
• Training: Our new series on qualification levels investigates the latest developments in Level 3 qualifications and the barriers that currently exist to take up.
• Outdoor CPD: Gabriella Jozwiak weighs the importance of practitioners achieving specific outdoor learning qualifications.

        News, analysis and opinion includes:

• Analysis: Katy Morton exposes how delays to development checks and the introduction of non-face-to-face appointments due to the pandemic are hindering the effectiveness of the programme.
• Opinion: Michael Pettavel makes the case for stepping back from work to gain perspective, while Deborah Callwayexplains why the Kickstart scheme gives young unemployed people a chance to experience working in childcare, and has value for providers as well.
• Interview: Meet nursery manager Natalie Kane who has won BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind Award (individual category) 2021 and colleague, Gillian Muir, who nominated her.
  
  

DON'T MISS OUR NEW A2 POSTERS!

The first poster in our Construction series features Iconic structures:

Collect the series which also includes Bridges, Skyscrapers, Places of worship, Homes and Statues and monuments