Nursery World - Inspiring a new wave of practitioners to protect the future learning of our children

Storal Learning's regional director Charlotte Roberts reflects upon what the nursery group is doing to retain practitioners and attract new people to the sector amid the continuing recruitment and retention crisis.

Charlotte Roberts: 'We need to celebrate early years as a vocation - there are great possibilities to make a real difference'

Despite the pressures of the last couple of years in relation to the worldwide pandemic, I still find myself as passionate as ever and driven to work towards meeting children’s outcomes.

My humble beginnings within the industry, as a part-time playworker, working towards my level three qualification, all those years ago, allowed me to quickly recognise my natural abilities in and passion for early years education. I was fortunate enough to have had my passion recognised in my early career and in turn encouraged to gain further graduate qualifications, which proved useful as I entered various leadership and management roles.

I reminisce of this time, a time when the industry was blanketed in excitement. There was an adrenaline rush of hope for the industry brought about by the publication of Dame Claire Tickell’s independent review in early 2011, where the learning and development of early years’ practitioners was linked with the impact on children’s development, when the importance of the workforce’s qualifications was under the spotlight again.

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