Nursery World Show: Seminars - Get a heads-up from the experts

A stellar line-up of experts is delivering this year's expanded seminar programme, designed to help you get up to speed on the revised Early Years Foundation Stage and gain insights into how the new framework is likely to affect your practice and setting.

The agenda offers 22 seminars and a masterclass. The focus will be on the main changes proposed for the new framework: the Prime and Specific areas of learning, assessment, the welfare requirements and working with parents. Popular topics, such as play and the under-threes, child behaviour and outdoor learning, also feature.

Both days kick off with an overview of the revised framework. Friday's free session is by Sue Robb, head of early years at 4Children, who will be getting to the heart of how the revised EYFS is likely to affect practice and policies. Setting the scene on Saturday will be consultant Ann Langston, who contributed to both the EYFS Review and the development of Birth to Three Matters. She will outline the core values of the revised EYFS and give pointers for best practice.

PRIME AND SPECIFIC AREAS

In the Prime areas seminars, speakers will set out the importance of PSED, Communication and Language, and Physical Development in fostering children's learning, development and well-being.

Physical Development could prove a steep learning curve for practitioners, say the experts, as it takes up its rightful place at the heart of the new curriculum. Advice will be on hand from consultants Anne O'Connor (Friday) and Anni McTavish (Saturday).

Anne says, 'Physical development isn't just about running around and fine motor skills. Practitioners will have to appreciate that it is integral to a child's well-being, brain development and cross-curricular learning, and that importance will need to be reflected in practice.'

The Specific areas currently proposed for the revised framework are Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design. How do they differ from the current areas of learning? How will they link to the Prime areas? What are the Expressive Arts and Design? Which goals have been cut? What does this mean for practice? Coming up with an overview of the four areas and answers to the principal queries about them are consultants Di Chilvers and Penny Tassoni.

ASSESSMENT

The revised framework promises to be less bureaucratic but brings more responsibility in assessing children with the introduction of a two-year-old development check and a revised EYFS Profile.

Advice on how to cut back on paperwork while continuing to assess and record children's learning effectively will be provided by Jan Dubiel of the Early Excellence Training and Resource Centre in Huddersfield (Friday) and Julian Grenier, early years advisor at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and former head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre (Saturday).

WELFARE REQUIREMENTS

Mandy Terry of Acorn Childcare Training (Friday) and Laura Henry, managing director of the Childcare Consultancy (Saturday) will be commenting on the welfare requirements that look set to have the biggest impact on how settings work, safeguarding and supervision.

The new emphasis on supervision stems from recommendations in the Plymouth Review (following the conviction of nursery nurse Vanessa George for child abuse). 'As a result,' says Laura Henry, 'managers will have to establish a professional dialogue with every member of staff, and demonstrate how they enable staff to raise issues and how they act upon any concerns noted during a one-to-one session. Supervision is very different from appraisals.'

WORKING WITH PARENTS

Though barely mentioned in the EYFS consultation, working with parents looks set to be given much greater prominence under the new framework. Lively sessions on how to engage parents in their children's learning are promised by consultant Stella Louis (Friday) and Alice Sharp, managing director of training company Experiential Play (Saturday).

Alice features in Nursery World's first DVD box set on active learning with the under-threes, and you can also see her in action in a seminar on the power of music in promoting children's learning and well-being.

CHILDMINDERS: ESPECIALLY FOR YOU

Are you a childminder and planning to come to this year's show? Then why not sign up for our first-ever seminar dedicated to childminding? Consultant and author Penny Tassoni will be giving lots of tips and ideas on how to create stimulating spaces that meet the learning and emotional needs of young children in a domestic setting. Practitioners from other types of setting are also bound to find it useful.

EYFS MASTERCLASS: FEW PLACES REMAINING

This year Nursery World is launching its EYFS Masterclass - Planning, observation and assessment under the revised EYFS - which at the time of going to press was virtually sold out.

The Masterclass, comprising three sessions, runs throughout Friday morning and addresses the key areas of learning, children's learning journeys and under-threes provision. Speakers are consultants Jan Dubiel, Di Chilvers and Penny Tassoni.

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