Could your career story help a young person forge their own path in childcare and early years?

For many of us, the path we’ve taken in our careers can often be traced back to the passions and talents of our childhood and teenage years. We’ve teamed up with Inspiring the Future to support you in illuminating this path for young people by sharing your career story and showing them how their early […]
Labour’s mission to focus on the early years
In a speech today, Kier Starmer will set out Labour’s plans to expand opportunity via five “missions” including “Early years reform – to boost child development with an ambitious target of half a million more children hitting their early learning targets by 2030.” We welcome the focus on the early years, and applaud the aim for many more […]
Government proposals to relax EYFS qualification requirements will impact quality

The Department for Education (DfE) is currently consulting on proposals to amend the Early Years Foundation Stage. They propose relaxing the requirements around the minimum qualifications levels for the sector including: These proposals are intended to allow flexibility to providers as a recognition of the recruitment and retention crisis currently faced by the early years […]
Resisting intensified accountability: is now the time for inspection reform?

by Dr Jo Albin-Clark, Edge Hill University and Dr Nathan Archer, Leeds Beckett University Inspection in the news Being involved in education in England involves navigating an intense policy landscape where accountability is entangled with surveillance and performativity (Spencer Woodley, 2014; Kilderry, 2015). Ofsted, the regulatory accountability mechanism in England, has seen heightened scrutiny recently […]
DfE relaxes ratios despite overwhelming opposition

The Department for Education (DfE) have published their response to the consultation on potential changes to staff:child ratios. The consultation received responses from nearly 10,000 parents, around 3,000 providers from across the sector, virtually all local authorities and many charities and sector organisations. The document acknowledges that there was overwhelming opposition to the proposal to […]
The early years sector needs a properly funded workforce

Today, teachers from the National Education Union are striking, including many working in nursery and reception classes. In the last week, the Department for Education published a report providing further evidence of the importance and impact of high quality teaching in reception. This adds to existing evidence about the crucial role of high quality teaching […]
I want to be an inspiring leader…

by Amanda Ince and Liz Bullough, UCL Institute of Education “I want to be an inspiring leader who can inspire my colleagues in my setting to be the best it can be….” This quote from a participant on the fully funded NPQ Early Years Leadership programme designed by UCL Institute of Education with Early Education […]
Ofsted’s Annual Review highlights importance of early years workforce
Ofsted’s latest annual review highlights the impact of recruitment and retention challenges and finds a link between inspection outcomes and the proportion of graduates in a setting. It recognises the work which settings are doing to address the impact of the pandemic on young children. It found that 96% of providers on the early years […]
Early Years Foundation Stage: No place for men?

by Clarissa Frigerio Why are there so few men teaching in the early years? I have worked in the profession for almost 9 years, and I was lucky to teach internationally (Italy, USA, and UK). Only once in that time I worked with a man. But this should not have been a surprise, as latest […]
Teaching in reception for the first time

It could be argued that teachers who move into teaching reception for the first time, face the same challenges as the children themselves as they start in reception.