The Bristol & Beyond Stronger Practice Hub is delighted to launch our 2026 to 2027 programme of fully funded professional development for early years practitioners across the region. It is our biggest year yet, and our new brochure is ready to download. Every event, network session and CPD programme we are running this year can now be browsed and booked on our website.
A full year of professional development
There are almost 100 regional activities running from September 2026 through to August 2027, with a mixture of online and face-to-face activities delivered across settings throughout the region. All our activities are fully funded.
The programme spans 12 subject areas, including Working with Babies, Spotlight on Twos, Communication, Language and Literacy, Maths, PSED, SEND, EDI, Childminders, and Leadership and Staff Development. Our activities are open to early years practitioners across Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire, including nursery, reception and pre-school staff, childminders, EYFS teachers and leads, school leaders, SENCOs and setting managers.
Three ways to take part
Events are one-off face-to-face training sessions consisting of workshops and study days, delivered in person. They are typically a morning or a whole day, and they might involve some immersion in practice. Webinars are one-off online events held at different times of the day to meet different people’s needs. Although they are online, we try to make them as interactive as possible, and some are recorded and made available afterwards.
Network events are regular activities centred on a specific network, designed to encourage regular attendance and ongoing development. They are an opportunity to share knowledge and effective practice and to make connections with other practitioners. Our network events run across nine regional networks, including Leadership Matters, the Childminder Network, the PSED and SEND Networks, and the Maths and Communication and Language Networks.
CPD programmes provide multi-session learning journeys that build knowledge progressively over time and develop your evidence-based practice, giving you the time and space to embed new learning into your everyday practice. Each programme requires a commitment to attending all sessions, enabling you to develop expertise through sustained engagement with key topics, reflective practice, and peer collaboration.
Browse the programme and download the brochure
You can browse everything by subject area on our events page, or use the calendar for a month-by-month view of what is coming up. Our new brochure gathers the whole year into one printable document, which is useful if you want to plan ahead with your team or share the programme with colleagues.
Evidence-based CPD programmes
Alongside our own events and networks, we are delivering five fully funded Professional Development Programmes developed by the Department for Education. Each one runs over a single academic term and combines online modules that you work through in your own time with a series of seminars, at least one of which is face-to-face, and each is led by one of our own Learning Leads. Each cohort recruits 15 early years settings, and, depending on demand, we may be able to accommodate up to 2 attendees per setting.
Three are recruiting now for the autumn term: Early Maths, Early Language, which is running a cohort specifically for Bristol childminders alongside a regional cohort for PVIs and schools, and PSED. Two more, Early Maths Under Twos and Early Language Under Twos, launch in the summer term of 2027 and are open for expressions of interest now.
You can find full details of all five, along with other fully funded routes such as the accredited Early Years SENCO Level 3 qualification and the Maths Champions programme, on our evidence-based CPD page. If you would like to register your interest, or you are not sure which programme is the right fit for your setting, please email us at sph@beyth.co.uk.
Local offer
We also run a programme of local events. Local networks offer opportunities to meet face-to-face or online with other childminders and early years practitioners within your Local Authority. They may have a specific discussion focus, or they may give you the chance to reflect on the current highlights and challenges in your setting. Local networks are hosted at a variety of settings, so different types of provision can inspire you, and they create opportunities to connect with other settings between meetings for advice or to share practice.
Our SPH Network Leads and Local Specialist Leaders are working with Local Authorities and with local groups to add value to existing local networks and to identify where we can support the development of new ones. These will be added to the website over the coming weeks, so please keep an eye on our local offer page.
Any questions
If you have a question about any part of the programme, or you would like help working out what would suit your team best, please get in touch at sph@beyth.co.uk. We look forward to working with you this year.
