Early Years Continuing Professional Development
News and information about Early Years CPD at The University of Northampton
Welcome to th ECU Bulletin for 12 January 2012.
Researching Young Children and their Learning: I am a Practitioner Researcher
Early Years CPD Conference, Saturday 25th February 2012, 9.30am – 3.30pm
Keynote by Jean McNiff
Jean McNiff is one of the most influential action researchers in the World today. Her writings bear witness to her sustained commitment to support action research in local, regional, national and global contexts.
£50.00 per delegate
I listen and I believe, I see and I understand: a collective reflection approach to understanding children’s experience
Early Years Partnership Evening, Thursday 29th March 2012, 6.00pm – 8.30pm
Keynote by Carmen Mohamed
Carmen Mohamed, from the University of Leicester, will share her recent findings from a research project ‘Tuning in to Children’ (funded by Youth Music), exploring children’s musicality and its impact upon practice in Early Years settings.
Free of charge
For further information on either of the above, please contact lorraine.harman@northampton.ac.uk
The University was very pleased to welcome the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dr Maggie Atkinson, to speak at the Annual Children and Young People’s Lecture. Dr Atkinson took up her post in March 2010 and has a 30 year career advocating the interests of children and young people. The evening was well attended with an audience of academics, professionals and students working within the children and young people’s sector. Dr Atkinson’s lecture, Promoting and Protecting Children’s Rights, was extremely well received and provided the audience with an opportunity to question how far both policy and practice live up to the promises made to children and young people in the ‘United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’.
Following a welcome and introduction by Ann Shelton-Mayes, Dean, of The School of Education, eighteen students were presented with their Early Years Professionals awards by Vice Chancellor, Professor Nick Petford.
The evening ended with a reception, providing delegates with an opportunity to network, but to also experience the new Sulgrave Building.
The Practical Pre-School Awards 2011 Guide, in association with 5 to 7 Educator
Click here to download the 2011 Guide
I am delighted to send you a digital edition of the Practical Pre-School Awards Guide 2011, published by MA Education Limited, the publisher of professional education magazines including Practical Pre-School incorporating Child Care, 5 to 7 Educator and EYE (Early Years Educator).
For the second year in succession, the Practical Pre-School Awards Guide 2011 is being additionally distributed as a digital edition to all of our contacts who work within the 0 to 8 age range. Most of you will be familiar with one if not all of our publications and we are keen that you receive as much extra, useful information as possible that can assist you in your daily practice.
We have also produced this digital edition to enable the widest possible range of early years and primary education professionals to access the information and guidance within and to easily share this with colleagues.
The Practical Pre-School Awards have been running for many years and have a strong reputation within the childcare industry as reliable, informative and trustworthy. The awards in both the early years and the 5 to 7 age ranges include numerous categories such as: Teacher Resources, Equipment and Tools; Toys and Games for both the 0 to 3 and 3 to 5 age ranges; Childcare; Music and Multimedia; Electronic Toys; Modern Foreign Languages; Books and Publications as well as 5 to 7 Toys and Games; 5 to 7 Books and Publications; 5 to 7 All other resources, and Classic Toys and Games. This year we have introduced new categories for Creative Play, 5 to 7 Creative Play and for Best Licensed Property to give even more range and breadth to the awards overall.
This year we have been very impressed by the wide range of products which have been entered all of which clearly highlight and emphasise the high levels of imagination, creativity, expertise and devotion that have gone in to producing new products. All of the products, as you will see when you read the guide, have been rigorously tested and marked by professionals in settings to attain their final score and their final award – possibly a Gold, a Silver or a Bronze or even Overall Category Winner.
Please therefore use the guide as much as possible over the year ahead to enable you to make informed purchasing decisions for your educational setting. In these continuing tough economic times when every pound spent on new equipment needs to be a pound carefully spent, the Practical Pre-School Awards Guide 2011, in association with 5 to 7 Educator, will prove a very valuable tool for you and your teams to refer to, time and time again.
In 2012, the Practical Pre-School Awards will for the first time be run in association with our brand new magazine ‘Primary Teacher Update’. This will allow products that are aimed at slighter older children, in key stage 2 or aged up to 11 to be entered and will further broaden the relevance, reach and impact of the awards overall.
I hope you find the guide useful and informative. You will find that the digital format is easy to navigate and you can bookmark and forward pages of interest to your colleagues.
Kind regards
Matt Govett
Matt Govett | Publisher & Managing Director
MA Education Ltd
St. Jude’s Church
Dulwich Road
London
SE24 0PB
T: 0207 501 6735 | M: 07979 713954
F: 0207 326 4835
Early Years CPD Conference, Saturday 1st October 2011
Without a doubt, this was seen by all as both an inspirational and entertaining conference. Delegates (and organisers) ended the day with their heads swimming with ideas, clutching their box full of storytelling provocations with smiles on their faces. A great achievement for a Saturday with temperatures soaring and the sun beating down.
The day commenced with Professional Story Teller, Jo Blake, enchanting us with enthralling narratives. This led us wonderfully into our keynote by the well respected Helen Bromley, fuelling the debate around the ever increasing use of media in young children’s lives.
Delegates were given the opportunity to discuss and create, with an array of exciting resources to fuel their imaginations.
Comment from Helen Bromley:
Working on a Saturday just shouldn’t be this much fun! It was so exciting to be part of the Weaving Magic Conference on 1st October. The enchantment began as soon as you entered the building, with gorgeous displays and boxes of treasure for all the participants. The storyteller who opened the conference was spellbinding and set the tone perfectly for what was to prove an inspirational day. I loved every minute of it and truly didn’t want to leave! I came away with loads of ideas and some fabulous new children’s books,. A massive thanks you to the organisers!
Comments from practitioners:
“A very big thank you for all the effort put into organising Saturday’s conference. My colleagues and I were made to feel very welcome and thoroughly enjoyed the event. We left brimming with ideas and inspiration! It is always good to feel like this after a course, so a big thank you to you all.”
“I just wanted to thank you so much for organising such an informative and inspiring day. When in my setting on Tues I decided to try some of the things I had learnt and used the Dragon’s Tear idea as stimulus for the story. I used one of the stones you had given us, the children thoroughly enjoyed it and I don’t think they have ever sat so quietly. My staff team were in awe and could hardly believe what complex and thoughtful story suggestions they were giving. I will carrying this on following the children’s thought patterns on Fri using a larger stone as a dragon’s egg as there were lots of discussions to whether the dragon had a baby (many of the children have had new brothers and sisters) so I hope this goes as well. Thank you again.”
Welcome to the ECU Bulletin for 1 December 2011
Welcome to the ECU Bulletin for 8 September 2011
Comments are invited and welcomed on your thoughts regarding the Early Years Foundation Stage consultation document
Dear colleague,
I wanted to let you know that the Early Years Foundation Stage Consultation document was published today.
Alongside that we have also made available a discussion document on the core purpose of Sure Start Children’s Centres. This has been developed by the Department for Education and our co-production partners in local authorities, children’s centres and the wider early years sector.
The Government is seeking to move beyond the ‘core offer’ for children’s centres, to set out the core purpose, enabling greater flexibility for local authorities and children’s centres to commission services based on an assessment of local need. The document does three distinct things:
· sets out what the Government see as the core purpose of children’s centres in terms of outcomes for children and families
· explains (based on discussion with the children’s centre sector) the approaches that successful children’s centres adopt in delivering that core purpose
· sets out the principles that sector leaders have developed to underpin the core purpose.
to see and comment on the core purpose. Your views will help to develop the final core purpose that will be published with the Families in the Foundation Years statement due to be published in the next few weeks, and will feed in to future policy development with partners in the sector.
Please pass this message on to others who may be interested.
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