Course Portfolio

We all sometimes get stuck when we need to say some hard things to people. This session will provide you with the opportunities to explore what might be stopping you from doing this, consider different ways of approaching and leading the conversation, and provide space to practice them. You will be offered a variety of strategies from which you can apply your new learning to that next tricky conversation you need to have.

Supervision is an effective tool to support staff wellbeing, accountability and ambition in your school or setting. The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage requires that providers must put appropriate arrangements in place for the supervision of staff who have contact with young children and families. During this session we will review understanding, policy, protocols and procedures for developing effective supervision in your EYFS setting/ class teams. It will also explore some of the complexities of being an effective supervisor and some of the strategies to get the most out of your team in this role.

This 3 part course will support you to embed the Early Years Foundation Stage in your setting whilst ensuring that children and families are at the heart of good practice.

1 - Principles of EYFS
We will explore the four themes of EYFS, Characteristics of Effective Learning, Prime areas and will make reference to the new early learning goals and reformed educational programmes in the EYFS

2 - Observation, assessment and planning
We will consider the principles of effective observational assessment and how this supports planning that supports all children to be motivated lifelong learners.

3 - The Role of the Adult and an Enabling Environment
We will understand more about the key person approach, the importance of relationship based practice and consider how to develop an effective learning environment.

Children develop personally, socially and emotionally as they experience warm, nurturing and loving relationships with significant adults and others around them. Clear and consistent behavioural boundaries also play a part. This session will help you to support children’s behaviour through a conflict resolution approach that is positive and empowering. You will learn the basic technique that is tailored to the unique needs of very young children and supports personal, social and emotional development. You will explore how “tuned in”, effective communication at the point of conflict can strengthen the skills that allow children to deal with tricky moments more independently.

This session will help you to support children and young people to understand the different emotions they experience, why they occur and how to handle them.

We will consider Emotion Coaching as a strategy for supporting children’s behaviour and self-regulation and highlight research which demonstrates the value of an emotion coaching approach.

There will be opportunities to explore the tools to practice emotion coaching with children.

A trauma-informed approach to early learning includes developing a thorough understanding of the ways trauma impacts developmentally on children and recognising symptoms of trauma. Once we understand this, we can respond to ensure connection not misconnection and provide positive relational experiences. This session will provide an introduction to trauma and adversity to understand that all behaviour is communicating an emotion. We will reflect on Dan Hughes’ PACE model as a strategy to support children when they are displaying distressed behaviour - connecting not correcting their behaviour.

“Beneath every behaviour there is a feeling. And beneath every feeling there is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focus on the behaviour we begin to deal with the cause.”
Ashleigh Warner, Psychotherapist

This session will offer time and space to understand attachment theory and how it underpins practice; to understand the critical role of the adult in supporting children’s wellbeing, and how your environment and routines impact children’s sense of safety.

This session will offer time and space to be curious about children’s behaviour and the importance of connection; to have strategies in how to respond to children’s behaviour; the critical role of the adult in coregulation.

This session will offer us time and space to consider the impact that experiencing trauma and adversity can have on our minds, bodies and life outcomes of the children and families that we work with. We will also reflect on some of the behaviours that we may see in children that are struggling to regulate their emotions and make sense of their experiences. We will look at how secure attachment to an emotionally available adult can build resilience and promote self-esteem, effective stress regulation and capacity for fulfilling relationships throughout life. We will share case study examples of the healing power of connection and show how therapeutic responses can support individuals to move from a place of social defence and isolation, to a place of safety, fulfilment and joy. This session will ignite conversations about how we can realign our practice to ensure that it is underpinned by trauma informed principles. We will also share some practical ideas and activities to share with children and families we work with to help to unlock trauma and focus on reparation through play.

The new EYFS Educational Programmes ask us to review how we design a curriculum that is inspiring, appropriate, values based, connected and accessible to all learners. This session will explore what we mean by curriculum in the early years and how we can ensure that it is responsive to the unique needs of the children and communities that we work with. We will understand how intent, implementation and impact links to our thinking about curriculum. We will consider how our curriculum encourages ambition and ensures learners are making progress in a meaningful way. We will understand more about a curriculum that is not delivered but is lived and experienced by our youngest learners.

The EYFS Statutory Framework has a revised emphasis on practitioner’s professional confidence about children’s learning without the need for excessive documentation or evidence. We will consider how to develop confidence in articulating our intent, implementation and impact in this context. This session will explore “telling the story”, and exploring what’s behind a child’s learning and how we describe what we notice about their learning as part of our ongoing assessment practice. We will also draw on some of the principles of learning stories.

This session will support you to explore some of the facts, feelings, behaviours and actions that are embedded in Race Equality. We will acknowledge and reflect on the legacy of unconscious bias and discrimination, and explore what authentic cultural competency, might look like in your School or Early Years setting. We will develop a better understanding of why we need to be proactive in our leadership of race equality, and reflect on why it is about so much more than ‘every life matters’.

This session will support your exploration and understanding of the language of gender (including pronouns and the spectrum of gender identity). It will look at the Equalities Act 2010 and our statutory requirements in early years to support all children and families from a gender perspective. Participants will gain a better understanding of the impact of gender stereotyping on: access to early years provision; children's developing sense of self; limiting educational and career choices; and on fuelling prejudice, harassment and poor mental health. We will explore how developing a fully inclusive, diverse and enabling environment can best support all children and their families.

This session will support your knowledge and understanding of how children learn to read, the skills they need and how we as adults can motivate them to become confident and develop a lifelong love of books and stories. We will explore the approaches that support early readers linked to Loving Literacy audit tool. We will consider how children develop enthusiasm and resilience to link their phonic knowledge and language comprehension within a rich literary curriculum.

This session will support your knowledge and understanding of how children become writers, the skills they need and how we as adults can motivate them to become confident authors to tell their own stories. We will explore the approaches that support early mark makers to develop enthusiasm and resilience to link their knowledge of letters and sounds with physical skills, imagination and real reasons to write. The strategies discussed will be linked to the Loving Literacy audit tool.

Block Play is a fundamental and integral part of early childhood education. So open-ended and full of endless possibilities!

This will be a first-hand, hands-on, experiential session with opportunities to playfully explore Block Play.

Children’s collaborative, creative constructions offer such a vivid window onto all aspects of their learning - here we will be looking at Block Play through a specifically “mathematical lens”.

We will reflect together on how to create enriched and enlivened Block Play spaces; how to support children’s learning trajectories as they journey through the 7 stages of Block Play; and, how to observe and scaffold the huge range of mathematical and spatial skills children demonstrate whilst filling and fitting, making and modelling, reproducing and representing with Blocks.

Consider how children are entitled to a strong mathematical foundation and how numbers help children make sense of the world.  Broaden your own subject knowledge through exploring the complexity and components of counting.  Take a look at progression and learning trajectories for children as they become ever-more proficient counters.  Reflect on how we can integrate mathematics in everyday contexts and provide children with maths-rich learning experiences.

Children who expect mathematics to “make sense” look for patterns – spotting patterns can predict later mathematical achievement!  Discuss definitions and key concepts of pattern. Explore the importance of pattern and how recognising repetition, regularity, and relationships helps children make connections to all areas of mathematics.  Consider how adults can support children make connections in understanding the rules and underlying structures of patterns and how provision can ignite and provoke this most brilliant and fundamental aspect of mathematics!

Explore the importance of spatial reasoning and its impact on wider mathematical development.  Discuss definitions and key aspects of spatial reasoning, including recognition, visualisation and representation.  Consider mathematically-rich enabling environments including Being Outside, Block Play and Construction Play.  Reflect on what quality adult-child interactions might look like through a “spatial reasoning lens”, including the language and vocabulary of relations, objects and images.

This session will explore the basics of effective, authentic and meaningful interactions with children in the EYs. We will cover what makes for quality interactions: the way we use our body and voice, how we listen, pause, and reflect on children’s learning with them. How we can deepen their thinking, provoke new learning and delight in the children’s fascinations. We will use the quality interaction checklist to learn more about how to develop good practice.

A child’s journey to becoming a reader and writer starts with listening to and playing with the sounds around them. This session will consider what children need before they start learning letters and sounds as part of the daily phonics teaching in their first year at school. Why do some children find this easier than others and what can we do before the Reception year to support this key skill? We will learn about the importance of phonological awareness, blending and segmenting in the context of making this meaningful and fun for children and practitioners!

This session will support practitioners to consider the implications for children and families coming into their setting with no or very little English. We will explore cultural identity, self-esteem, language acquisition and learn practical strategies to ensure both children and families have a voice, all of which has impact on their achievement. We will develop a better understanding of communities, cultures and communication and consider how valuing the home language has impact on children’s confidence and self-esteem. We will explore the Bell Foundation EAL assessment framework and how this can support multi-lingual learners understanding, communication and a sense of belonging.

This session will explore the ways in which we can support and extend effective characteristics of learning to enable young children to become resilient, reflective lifelong learners. We will consider the Bristol C of EL guidance with the additional strand of emotional well-being and how this might support an inclusive learning community. The guidance includes practice ideas, reflective questions to support planning and a useful assessment tool. If this part of the Statutory EYFS is prioritised it will support children to be engaged, motivated, thinking and connected learners.

How does the environment support children’s sense of well-being, safety, belonging and motivation for learning? How can the atmosphere and space support learning and development for every child? This session will consider how the emotional needs of children can be supported by a learning environment that holds, listens, nurtures and enables.

We will explore structures, relationships, the key person approach and working with families to develop a pedagogy that is built on attachment led practice. There will be opportunities to reflect on how children make sense of the world around them as they navigate the spaces and places for learning that we provide.

Many children have missed out on fundamental physical development opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic, a gap which is being identified now that children are back in schools/settings.

This session will explore how provision of a movement rich environment and curriculum not only supports children’s physical development but their social, emotional, cognitive and language development too.

There will be opportunities to reflect on how wide-ranging physical experiences indoors and outdoors support all areas of learning, including Characteristics of Effective Learning; the physical skills to support mark making and reading; and lifelong positive attitudes towards being physically active and healthy.

This session will explore in depth the reasons why children need to play. How exploration through play builds confidence, helps children to relate to each other, establish relationships, set their own goals and solve problems. We will discuss how the play can be guided by adults, based on the children’s interests and own enquiries. The interactions that the adults have with the children is the basis for being able to respond to each child’s needs and levels of development. Providing resources to extend the play in the moment and imparting new knowledge alongside the play, have a vital role, requiring confidence and skill, that we hope you will gain from this session.

This session will explore how we can talk with babies to help them become confident communicators and develop respectful relationships that enable babies to make genuine choices. We will consider how mindful care routines might support communication and language, the power of non-verbal communication and learning the ‘conversational dance’. We will explore the benefits of ‘contingent talk’ with younger children and how high quality adult /child-interactions and planning for talk can be part of everyday practice.

Do you work with babies? Have you moved to a baby room recently after working with a different age group? Would you like to work with babies? Then this course is for you! We will be covering the differences of working in a baby room to other age groups; building relationships with babies and their families, caring for babies and respecting their rights, interacting with babies and practical elements of working with babies such as milk, weaning and safe sleeping arrangements.

This session will help you really understand the different behaviour strategies that can be used for children in the Early Years with language delay and difficulties. We will explore the importance of considering children’s levels of understanding and what their behaviour is telling you. We will discuss the learning environment, consider our own responses to children’s unwanted behaviours and offer many tips and examples of useful ideas for you to take away and use immediately. Strategies and tools will be shared which enable a positive approach to supporting children with communication delay in your setting.