Inclusive leadership – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

It is both a challenging and exciting time to be a leader in early childhood education. Inclusive Leadership is about creating an environment where everyone matters, where allyship, not privilege resides. Where children and staff from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge, can come together and feel seen, knowing that every voice is afforded the agency and autonomy to achieve a sense of belonging and psychological safety.  Inclusive leaders are aware of their own biases and actively seek out collaboration to consider different perspectives to inform decision-making.

Your setting identity, its ethos, vision, and values, are constructed from a plurality of influences, bound within philosophies of childhood, theoretical persuasions, and political sway, not to mention, the perceived perfectionisms from social media. It is no wonder, therefore, that within our intent and enactment of such influences, to provide the best for our children and families, we may lose sight of our own setting identity. This can lead to a deviation from, and dilution of, our core values, which may have more significance than first appears, for example upon staff recruitment, and retention, and relationships with children.

Aims:

• Develop an understanding of inclusive leadership, definitions, theory, and styles.
• Consider the role of identity, positionality, and intersectionality within your setting community.
• Begin to reflect on the importance of belonging and psychological safety as a critical component of inclusivity and workforce retention.
• Strengthen a collaborative authentic alignment of your setting ethos, core principles, and practices.

Relationship Mapping: Attachment & Attunement in the Early Years – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

Using the beautiful simplicity of sociograms, this course will provide you with a visual representation of the relationships with the children in your setting. As early years educators and leaders of pedagogy, you are invited to deconstruct, confront, theorise, and potentially think otherwise about the significance of positive and nurturing relationships within the setting. This course can be tailored to support all early educators across a whole setting from 0-5 years, or for educators working with specific ages under 5 years – and is adaptable to be a single or multi-part course.

Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:

• Reflect, identify, question, and potentially reconsider assumptions and perceptions of the connections and relationships with children in our settings.
• Consider the significance of equitable, positive, and nurturing relationships, between every child and early years educator, to have the best possible start in life. 
• Explore how the concept of relationship mapping can support each child to connect to at least one adult in the setting: to be known and feel felt. 
• Reflect upon the individual and pedagogical factors of influence to these relationships, such as attachment stages and types, play, deployment, attendance, interaction styles, key person approach, gender constructs, transitions, unconscious bias and culture.

Constructing a pedagogy of rights, respect, and relationships in your setting – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

This course invites staff to come together and consider the construction of a pedagogical approach which views the child through a lens of rights, respect, and relationships. A value base which centralises child voice and constructs a competent image of the child, can provide founding principles that inform and influence good practice.  The course will support educators with the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ of such a pedagogy, bridging research, theory, and practice.

Aims:

• Strengthen early educator’s knowledge and understanding of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, taking a deeper dive into specific articles and what this looks like in practice.
• Promote thought regarding respect for children within society and our settings, and how this translates within areas such as wider policy, curricular frameworks, partnerships with families, our environments, and children’s participation and agency.
• Encourage reflexive practice, through practical activity, to identify, question, and potentially reconsider assumptions and perceptions of the connections and relationships with children in our settings, considering the significance of equitable, positive and nurturing relationships, between every child and educator.
• Influence an ethos of inclusivity within your settings, considering the interplay of a pedagogy of respect, rights, and relationships.

Leading pedagogy: a whole team approach – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

It is both a challenging and exciting time to be in early childhood education.  We are informed by an abundance of theories, approaches, methods, and interventions, not to mention a new wave of inspiring early years pioneers. It is no wonder, therefore, that within our intent to provide the best for our children and families, we may lose sight of our own setting identity. This can lead to a variance and dilution of core values and may impact upon staff retention. This course is for all educators across a whole early childhood setting, regardless of size.

Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:

• Consider your own professional identity and influences within early childhood education.
• Explore through reflection and discussion your core principles within the setting.
• Develop setting vision and values which are both authentic and collaborative.
• Learn how this translates into practice and where aspects of provision could be strengthened.

Help! I can’t do maths: developing children’s mathematical thinking – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

Many of us profess to be less than efficient in maths. Research informs us as a nation we can become quite proud in our confession of this. However, do we readily share our lack of confidence and knowledge in literacy, for example, in the same way? How does this cultural retort impact on our children’s play and learning?  This course aimed at all childminders within the early years, acknowledges and alleviates the fear which can be associated with the development of children’s mathematics and serves to empower and strengthen your mathematical provision.

Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:

• Consider the concerns and fears of many early years educators in nurturing children’s mathematical development.  
• Explore the importance of the adult role in teaching and supporting children’s mathematical thinking.
• Develop an understanding of how to support children’s deeper understanding, fluency, and mastery of mathematics.
• Learn that maths is everywhere and in everyday practice and not a potentially perceived formal part of the curriculum.

This course can also be adapted for other audiences, such as early years practitioners.

Is poverty the poor relation?: Supporting children who are at risk of financial disadvantage – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

Early childhood educators are strategically positioned within a political agenda to reduce the impact of poverty and narrow the gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. However, the voice of the educator is all too often silent within such political intention, implementation, and impact. This course will support all educators to develop their knowledge and understanding of how best to support our children and families, who are considered at risk from financial disadvantage.

Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:

• Consider personal and professional contexts of disadvantage
• Explore the significance of language associated with disadvantage and influences of bias informed practice.
• Develop an understanding of the funding processes designed to support children at risk from financial disadvantage within an early childhood setting.
• Learn effective ways to support children and families, who experience, or who are considered at risk from financial disadvantage.

Visualising vulnerability in early years provision – delivered by Jacqui Lewis

For children and educators alike, learning can be an emotionally high-risk activity where failure can often be extremely painful. This course provides a toolbox of visual aids to assist all educators to reflect, identify, and support vulnerabilities in practice which may exist. All too often vulnerability is projected towards children and cohorts and not within our provision and practice for children.

Aims and objectives – Delegates will have opportunities to:

• Consider how reflective practice can enhance the support provided for children and families.
• Explore a variety of visual tools to support reflection and identification of individual children and family need.  
• Develop an understanding of how these tools can support an inclusive pedagogy.  
• Learn how your reflective artistry can impact directly on the support you provide for children and families within your setting.