While it may feel as if the Covid-19 pandemic is ‘over’ in England, within the early years sector, practitioners and children are still recovering from the impact of lockdowns on children’s development and settings’ finances. This is reflected in the kinds of continuing professional development (CPD) courses that practitioners are currently prioritising, as they operate in a ‘new normal’ era.
‘Increased training opportunities across the spectrum of child learning and development are vital to address the perfect storm of conditions resulting from pandemic lockdowns, and historic early years and special needs underfunding,’ says Childbase Partnership quality and training director Lorna Wigley. As a result, practitioners at Childbase’s 45 nurseries have been focusing on ‘back to basics’ training since January 2021, to ensure they have the knowledge and confidence to recognise and address children’s developmental issues.
The settings have also trained staff to use Persona Dolls – child-like dolls that take part in story sessions and can be used to help improve children’s emotional literacy and self-esteem. ‘After long lockdown periods without interaction and play with extended family and friends, children are struggling to self-regulate and manage their emotions, so behaviour features heavily [in our training],’ says Wigley.
PRIORITISING SEND
Portico Day Nurseries area manager Sarah Fillingham says the group’s seven settings have seen an increase in cases of children on the autistic spectrum in the past two years, resulting in staff prioritising special educational needs and disability (SEND) training.
However, the financial impact of Covid-19 means training budgets are tight, in addition to recruitment difficulties putting pressure on staff. ‘Having staff out of ratio during the day to do training is impossible,’ says Fillingham. ‘The numbers of children with autism are getting quite overwhelming.’ To meet the children’s needs, Portico’s director has lobbied the setting’s local authority for more CPD support.
National Association for Special Educational Needs (nasen) education officer for early years Mandy Wilding says Portico’s situation is common. ‘Autism is a high priority for practitioners to get support with because there’s a huge increase in the number of children with autistic spectrum conditions,’ she says.
Wilding suggests this is partly because children’s needs went unchecked during lockdown periods, as a result of typical professional points of contact ceasing to operate, such as the two-year-old check with health visitors. ‘Now these SENDs are coming to light,’ she says.
This is putting pressure on early years settings to find SEND CPD, as they have to address individual children’s needs themselves while they wait for professional assessments. Wilding says a shortage of educational psychologists, who make autism spectrum diagnoses, is causing delays. Similarly, nasen has seen an increase in practitioners looking for speech, language and communication needs training. ‘The waiting lists now for speech and language therapy are 18 months to two years,’ says Wilding.
SEND training has also been popular among childminders. Wilding says one webinar she hosted last year, funded by the Department for Education, attracted 270 childminders. ‘A lot of these childminders had never had SEND training before,’ she says.
‘Part of their popularity was because it began at 6pm,’ she adds. ‘Twilight’ online CPD sessions have remained a popular choice among practitioners since the pandemic.
FREE TRAINING
Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY) information, advice and guidance manager Angela Gamble says cost is a key factor driving childminders’ CPD priorities. ‘There is a big appetite for free training courses, and courses that can take place outside working hours, such as those that are available online, so that practitioners do not lose income to attend,’ she says.
PACEY has found childminders are opting for CPD that covers subjects essential to maintaining their registration, such as safeguarding, first-aid, Ofsted inspection support, and training that supports the new EYFS framework. Safeguarding and EYFS are the most-searched-for topics on PACEY’s CPD platform, which offers short, online training courses. However, ‘trauma’ is also a popular topic. One childminder told PACEY that post-pandemic, she was focusing her CPD on ‘supporting behaviour and children who have experienced trauma’.
Both Gamble and Wilding say practitioners are often unaware of what Government-funded CPD is available (see box). The DfE has pledged £180 million of recovery support to the early years sector. A DfE spokeswoman said this includes ‘up to £153 million to provide the opportunity for evidence-based professional development, including through new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development’.
SOURCING GOOD VALUE
MBK Training early years trainer Tricia Wellings says her company is currently seeing high demand for CPD on Ofsted inspections. Ofsted suspended its inspections during the pandemic, but resumed them for some settings in May 2021. The revised EYFS framework came into force in September of the same year, as did the non-statutory curriculum guidance Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters. The changes have left many settings confused about what is required of them.
A Nursery World survey published in April found 74 per cent of settings inspected under the new framework thought the judgement they received was unfair. ‘Everybody is saying: should we use this document? Should we use that document? What should we do?’ says Wellings. ‘We’ve started working with settings to help them build their own curriculum.’
Wellings says while many settings are opting for cheaper, often online, CPD courses, doing CDP with your whole team is better value. ‘It makes a huge difference to have a team take in the information, and what they do with it, when they’re together,’ she says. ‘The purpose of CPD, ultimately, is to make some change – to make a difference.’
CPD focus on equality and diversity
Providers have a legal duty to follow the Equality Act 2010. CPD on inclusive practice and diversity has existed for years. But principal lecturer for childhood and early years at Nottingham Trent University Aaron Bradbury believes the subjects have received renewed interest among practitioners because the sector is approaching them in a different way.
Bradbury offers training on LGBTQ+ children and families. ‘There’s a multitude of reasons why practitioners want to do more specific training with LGBTQ,’ he says. ‘But I think it’s more about them reflecting on their own practices, how they can be more inclusive within their practice, but making sure that what they do, they do for the best of the children within their care.’
He says practitioners are keen to learn how to talk about LGBTQ+ in an age-appropriate way with children, and also to understand how it fits in with child development. They want to feel confident in managing relationships with parents who, for example, may choose to use non-gendered pronouns for their children. ‘My teaching is about: how do we make sure that, first and foremost, that child is professionally loved? And we are making sure that child is unique, like every other child?’
Interest in CPD courses on equality, race and unconscious bias has also been growing among early years professionals. Training delivered by the Black Nursery Manager anti-racist trainer Liz Pemberton have been in high demand since 2020. Together with three other early years professionals, she launched The Early Years Black List initiative in 2021 to help foster equality within the profession.
Lead early years consultant for short courses at the Froebel Trust, Stella Louis, who also offers CPD courses on equality, race and unconscious bias, says interest in topics related to race has risen for several reasons. The first was the unlawful killing of George Floyd in the US in May 2020, which she says brought the issue to the fore. ‘People saw discrimination in practice,’ she says. ‘Because there have been so many more conversations about race, diversity and discrimination, people are also reflecting on their own biases.’
In settings, Louis believes this has led practitioners to want to address biases in their decisions, for example, when assessing children or recruiting staff. ‘It’s also about people wanting to create a culture where diversity, and things like inclusion, are not just valued but they’re discussed without people feeling like they’re going to be called out for something,’ she adds.
Government-funded training
Some available options:
- Help for early years providers, https://bit.ly/3lkqA6V
- Nuffield Early Language Intervention, https://www.teachneli.org
- Early Years Professional Development Programme, https://www.earlyyearspdp.com
- Recognising and Preventing FGM, https://bit.ly/3FMms9e
- Introduction to Adverse Childhood Experiences, https://www.acesonlinelearning.com
- Nasen Accredited Early Years SENCO Award, https://bit.ly/3wiJod2 (nasen is currently awaiting confirmation that this award will be continued)
- Nasen Early Years SEND Partnership, https://www.nasen.org.uk/page/early-years-send-partnership
