Free EYFS online training courses

We may have had to postpone our Early Years Training programme but fortunately, there are now so many providers offering free online training during such unprecedented times. Having researched many of the training opportunities available, the Open University courses seem like a great opportunity not to be missed. On completion you will receive a statement of completion certificate. Below are some of the courses that staff at Broadford have been accessing.

Free EYFS  CPD opportunities The below providers are offering free CPD courses, often accredited, which can be undertaken by staff whilst working from home or in isolation. You will receive a statement of partictipation certificate on completion.
Course Title	Links	Duration
The role of play in children’s learning	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/professional-development-education/the-role-play-childrens-learning/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	15 hours
Parents as partners	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/educational-technology-and-practice/educational-practice/parents-partners/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	15 hours
Attachment in the Early Years	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education-development/early-years/attachment-the-early-years/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	6 hours
Understanding Early Years Environments	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/professional-development-education/understanding-early-years-environments-and-childrens-spaces/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	6 hours
Children’s perspective on play	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education-development/childrens-perspectives-on-play/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	5 hours of study
Early years: Teamwork and leadership	https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education-development/childhood-youth/early-years-team-work-and-leadership/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab	8 hours of study

Continuous provision session - 31st March

Continuous Provision session at Broadford

This year our 6 part programme, is open to all Teachers, Nursery Nurses and Teaching assistants in Early Years to attend. Our next session is on 'Continuous provision' and is open to all EYFS and KS1 staff.

The aims of the session will be:

*Defining what continuous provision means

*The role of the adult

*Planning for continuous provision

*Carrying out an audit

We will work together to define what Continuous Provision means for indoor and outdoor learning, ensuring that the quality remains the same.

We will look at how to resource your provision on a limited budget.

During the session, participants will have the opportunity to look at the continuous provision in our Nursery, Reception and Year 1 classes.

Vision to Provision session (Day 4) will be led by myself

Date: 31st March

Time: 9.00 -12.00 (Arrival from 8.30 for coffee) or 12.30 - 3.30 (Arrival from 12.30 for coffee)

Venue: Broadford Primary School

The Write Stuff: Fantastic Foundations.

Fantastic Foundations - The Write Stuff for Early years

Vision to Provision session (Day 3) will be led by The Write stuff for Early Years - Fantastic Foundations

Date: Tuesday 13th February
Time: 9.00 -12.00 (Arrival from 8.30 for coffee) or 1.00 - 4.00 ( Arrival from 12.30 for coffee)
Venue: Mead Primary School

These particular sessions will be also be open to all Literacy leads as well as to all Teachers, Nursery Nurses and Teaching assistants in Early Years.

For further information about, please see the link below:

https://www.thetrainingspace.co.uk/fantasticfoundations-course/


This course is fully funded by the Teaching School and is free for all Havering Schools. Outside of Havering, there will be a charge of £50 per participant.

Please note that to book onto Vision to Provision this year, you will need to book through the Teaching School - jstanley@broadford.havering.sch.uk. You will not be able to book via Havering Education Services. There are limited places for each of the courses, so please book early to avoid disappointment.​

FANTASTIC FOUNDATIONS WITH LYANNE YOUNG
SUPPORTING CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT IN COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERACY IN THE EARLY YEARS
COURSE OVERVIEW

The FANTASTICs are a key component of Jane Considine’s systems for teaching reading and writing to primary aged pupils. This full day of training will explore ways practitioners can use the FANTASTICs to support children in early years settings as they acquire language, develop vocabulary and begin to construct sentences. During the day, delegates will explore ways to introduce the FANTASTICs into a language rich environment and also how they can be used to directly extend children’s vocabulary. Practical ideas, anecdotes from real settings and case studies will be used to show the positive impact the FANTASTICs can have. As the day progresses delegates will discover how the FANTASTICs can also be used to effectively support the development of comprehension skills and written composition. The ideas and activities shared during this day are designed to be embedded within a curriculum of rich and varied experiences.


ABOUT LYANNE YOUNG
“Throughout the last academic year I have been privileged to spend time with amazing children and talented practitioners in a wide range of early years settings. Creating a sharing community, encouraging professional dialogues and the development of case studies as opposed to data, were high on the agenda for our Early Years Project group. I am very pleased to now be able to share the outcomes of this project during this new, one day training course titled – Fantastic Foundations.“

Lyanne Young, Education Development Officer.

Lyanne Young is the Education Development Officer here at The Training Space. She is an experienced Deputy Head teacher with a proven record in whole school improvement. She has coached and mentored subject leaders, individual teachers, NQTS and EYFS practitioners to develop their skills and improve their practice. Once described by an HMI inspector as a naturally gifted teacher, she has a creative approach to teaching and learning and is keen to share her wealth of experience to support others.

Pete Moorhouse training in Havering

We were delighted to welcome Pete Moorhouse back to Havering to enthuse even more Early Years practitioners with a passion to develop woodwork within their provision.

Pete Moorhouse is passionate about encouraging creative thinking in Early Years Education. He has over 25 years experience working with schools.Pete is the leading authority on Woodwork in Early Years Education and has several journal articles and books published. Pete is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol currently researching Creativity and Critical thinking in Early Years Education. Pete is dedicated to providing opportunities for all children to express their creativity and develop their creative and critical thinking skills, and firmly believes in narrowing the gap in attainment and improving outcomes for all children.

Pete will be leading two workshops throughout the day - one in the morning and then repeated again in the afternoon.

Date: Tuesday 8th October

Time: 9.00 -12.00 or 12.30- 3.00

Venue: Broadford Primary School

Please see the link below to find out more about Pete. 

https://irresistible-learning.co.uk/resources/

This course is free to all Havering Schools. If you are a school outside of Havering, but if yiou would like to attend, there is a fee of £25 per session.

If you would like to book a place, please contact Joanne Stanley at bookings@teachingschool.havering.sch.uk​ There are limited places for each of the courses, so please book early to avoid disappointment.

   

  

Vision to Provision Returns!!

Vision to Provision Returns!!

We are delighted to be able to deliver the Vision to Provision programme again this year, funded through Havering Primary Teaching School Alliance.

We will be changing how we run the programme based on the feedback from headteachers and EYFS leads. Over the past two years, we have been working with EYFS leads on developing a clear vision for their settings. We now feel that it would be a great opportunity to broaden Vision to Provision to include all Early Years practitioners with the focus of embedding the vision.

This year we will still run the 6 part programme, but this will be open to all Teachers, Nursery Nurses and Teaching assistants in Early Years to attend. All courses will be FREE for all schools in Havering. 

In previous years, we have asked that the EYFS leads attend all sessions as each session followed on from the previous session. This year the sessions are more stand alone as we have planned them based on what the EYFS leads have said they would like as a CPD programme for their colleagues, to support in embedding the vision. We have already planned for many of the sessions to be led by Early Years consultants, which means that places will be limited. This would mean however, that you could send a colleague to the session in the morning and then a different colleague to the session in the afternoon, or you could pick which sessions would be most beneficial to your school. As these sessions will be held in different schools, a tour will also be available.


Vision to Provision dates will be:

Tuesday 8th October - Pete Moorhouse - Developing woodwork in the Early Years @ Broadford School - please note change of venue

Tuesday 10th December - Jo Stanley - Cycle of Observing, assessing and planning

Thursday 13th February - The Write stuff for Early years - fantastic foundations @ Mead School

Tuesday 31st March - Jo Stanley - Continuous Provision

Thursday 7th May - Alison Shorter - Outdoor learning incorporating Forest Schools @ Mead School

Tuesday 2nd July - Susan Ogier - Expressive arts and design

All sessions will be either 9.00 - 12.00 or 12.30 - 3.30


Our first Vision to Provision session (Day 1) will be led by Pete Moorhouse

Date: Tuesday 8th October

Time: 9.00 -12.00 or 12.30- 3.00

Venue: Broadford Primary School

Please see the link below to find out more about Pete.

https://irresistible-learning.co.uk/resources/

Please note that to book onto Vision to Provision this year, you will need to book through the Teaching School - bookings@teachingschool.havering.sch.uk​ There are limited places for each of the courses, so please book early to avoid disappointment.

Vision to Provision - Day 6: 2nd July

We look forward to welcoming you all to Day 6, our final session of our Vision to Provision programme. If you haven't already booked onto the course, please do so via Havering Education Services portal. This programme is free to all EYFS leads across Havering.

This is one of our most succesful programmes run in collaboration with Havering Education Services. It is run by staff working in schools alongside Havering's Early Years Advisor.

The EYFS Leadership programme has been designed to facilitate further continuing professional development for Early Years Leaders, focusing specifically on the establishment of a vision for everyday practice, the practical application of leadership strategies and the ensuring of a great start to school for all Havering Reception aged pupils.


Day 6 - EYFS Leadership training half day session:

Tuesday 2nd July @ Mead

9.30am - 12.00pm or 1.00pm - 3.30pm
We will be discussing how you are developing 'Successful Transitions from YR to Y1'.

For this session you are invited to bring a year one colleague. I appreicate that to release two members of staff for the session may too demanding on your school at such a busy time of year, so this optional.

We will focus on sharing your Foundation Stage profile data with year one colleagues to support transition and then looking at our transition policies. If you could bring along your transition policies, that will be great.

We will also be discussing about how we will be developing Vision to Provision and some ideas for the future.

Vision to Provision Day 5 - EYFS Leaders and Headteachers Conference

We are absolutely delighted to be welcoming Pete Moorhouse back to lead our Early Years Conference this year.

This will be a great opportunity for Early Years Leaders and Headteachers to receive quality CPD from Pete Moorhouse. Pete provides a rich variety of creative CPD training sessions and delivers inspiring conference keynote presentations. He works with many Local Authorities and schools around the country providing early years training and also works internationally. The trainings are designed to inform staff of latest developments in the field and keep abreast of new issues.


The day will be split into three session. focussing on:

Encouraging Creative and Critival thinking in the Early Years

A focus around Enabling Environments

Woodwork in the Early Years


Below is a link in more detail about Pete:

https://irresistible-learning.co.uk/training/


More about the Conference:

Time: 9am - 3pm (coffee available from 8.30am)

Lunch: Provided for free to all EYFS leads and Headteachers in Havering

Booking: Please use the Havering portal to book your place

Audience: Headteachers & EYFS Leads



For further details, please contact: jstanley@teachingschool.havering.sch.uk

Vision to Provision Day 4 - Tuesday 2nd April

Day 4 of our Vision to Provision programme is fast approaching. If you haven't already booked onto the course, please do so via Havering Education Services portal. This programme is free to all EYFS leads across Havering.

This is one of our most succesful programmes run in collaboration with Havering Education Services. It is run by staff working in schools alongside Havering's Early Years Advisor.

The EYFS Leadership programme has been designed to facilitate further continuing professional development for Early Years Leaders, focusing specifically on the establishment of a vision for everyday practice, the practical application of leadership strategies and the ensuring of a great start to school for all Havering Reception aged pupils.

Day 4 - EYFS Leadership training half day session: 
Tuesday 2nd April @ Mead
9.00am - 12.00pm or 1.00pm - 4.00pm

The focus for this session will be the 'Mid Year Check'. We will be:

Looking at your provision

• Discussing impact on action plans - what next?
• Articulating your pedagogical approach 

Leadership

• Building a culture of continuous improvement - Looking at your mid year data drop and going through your analysis- highlighting where children may be exceeding/highlight children you want to discuss
• Looking at ways of effectively moderating your evidence within your teams

Dates to remember:

Second full day conference for EYFS Leaders and Headteachers: Thursday 9th May - keynote speaker: Pete Moorhouse


EYFS Leadership training half day session: Tuesday 2nd July

Broadford Host an Open Morning

We had the pleasure of welcoming a team from the East London Early Years and Schools Partnership, to discuss how we implement a self - led learning approach from EYFS through to Year 2 across our Federation. It was great to share our passion, our forever evolving journey and to share ideas to continue developing an approach that we all firmly believe in.

An open invite into our environment ensured our visitors got to see our vision in action and how our children thrive through a continuous provision approach.

We believe that all children can access learning through self led opportunities which offer variety, curiosity and challenge. Through high quality, purposeful play, children are able to learn practically. Hands-on meaningful experiences will allow them to make sense of the world, encouraging them to explore and investigate in a unique and non-threatening way. Children must be able to play freely and safely while learning to manage risks and make choices about where, how and when they play according to their age, stage and ability.

We believe in providing opportunities to ensure that children enjoy high quality self led learning, particularly outdoor free play in stimulating spaces with access to nature, on a daily basis.  High quality play opportunities and provision of a physical and social environment that supports play increase the likelihood of improved outcomes for children and lessen the impact of factors that lead to poorer outcomes. 

Collaborating with other schools benefits us all. It allows us to engage in meaningful conversations, share expertise and gain new ideas.

TA Training - Nuffield Early Language Intervention

On Friday, we welcomed back our TAs who are implementing The Nuffield Early Language Intervention across 15 school as part of the Strategic School Improvement Fund project. The project is a third of the way through and is now in the final 10 weeks. The project continues to be successful due the commitment, self reflection and knowledge that the TAs are bringing to the project.

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention is an evidence-based oral language intervention for children in nursery and reception who show weakness in their oral language skills and who are therefore at risk of experiencing difficulty with reading. It is delivered over 30 weeks by teaching assistants in groups of 3-4 children.

The intervention was developed by a team from the University of York, who subsequently carried out a randomised control trial in 15 schools and feeder-nurseries across Yorkshire. After 30 weeks, the children who had received the intervention had improved expressive language skills, including the use of vocabulary and grammar. Their letter-sound knowledge and spelling also improved, indicating the foundations of phonics were in place.

Vision to Provision Returns!!

We are delighted to be able to deliver the Vision to Provision programme again this year, funded through Havering Primary Teaching School Alliance. This programme is free to all EYFS leads across Havering.

The programme is designed to facilitate continuing professional development for Early Years Leaders, focusing specifically on the establishment of a vision for everyday practice, the practical application of leadership strategies and the ensuring of a great start to school for all Havering Reception aged pupils.

This year's programme has been planned around feedback given from participants who attended the programme last year.

Please ensure that you book onto all the sessions and make sure that you bring your Headteacher to the conference days. Sign up on the Havering Portal!

First full day conference for EYFS Leaders and Headteachers: Friday 19th October - Keynote speaker: Sarah Dunne

EYFS Leadership training half day session: Monday 3rd December

EYFS Leadership training half day session: Monday 11th February

EYFS Leadership training half day session: Tuesday 2nd April

Second full day conference for EYFS Leaders and Headteachers: Thursday 9th May - keynote speaker: Pete Moorhouse

EYFS Leadership training half day session: Tuesday 2nd July

Julie Fisher films at Broadford

At Broadford Primary School, we are continually striving to develop our practice, so we were delighted when Julie Fisher asked us if we could assist with her research. 

Julie spent the day at Broadford, filming in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. The focus was to look more closely at the different approaches used by teachers when they lead the learning in an adult-led activity, as opposed to when they are coming alongside a child-led activity. Julie filmed sessions where adults plan and direct the learning and then filmed child-led scenarios where adults come alongside the play and then ‘wait, watch and wonder’ before joining in to demonstrate that approach.

SSIF: Vision 2 Provision Conference

36 Havering Schools cake together to review the progress so far of our new Vision to Provision programme for Early Years leaders and settings.

What is the rationale for V2P?

Havering data shows that Expected outcomes are strong and improving. However Exceeding outcomes - particularly with Communication - are significantly behind. 

How did this session help?

The aims of this season were:

• to share with HTs and their EYFS leads the tweaks that have been made to approaches in their settings this year and the impact they have had
• give HT support with interpretating their EYFS data and being able to provide challenge and support for their EYFS leads
• look ahead to 2018-19 and how we can develop the programme further to meet the needs of Havering settings

Julie Fisher - Who Leads The Learning?

Julie Fisher then led the remainder of the day, exploring how adult/child interactions can be made more effective. 

I have been inspired by each session on the V2P course and think it has been a great source of knowledge, understanding and ideas for leadership. I particularly enjoyed Julia Fisher's talks and found them very inspirational!

From my perspective I think the course has been perfectly pitched. It has had a significant impact on me as a Head with no expertise in EYFS, in terms of strengthening and developing my understanding and as a consequence facilitating a much stronger relationship between senior leaders and Early Years. It has really helped us to further shape and refine our vision for our EYFS setting.

I think it has helped our EYFS lead to feel more secure in her leadership abilities. The programme has provided her with the opportunity to reflect on her practice and the practice of others.

We look forward to welcoming EYFS Leads back for the final session of the year on June 8th @ Mead Primary.

Improving Vocabulary in EYFS

If we want to close the vocabulary and attainment gap that already exists by the age of 3, we need to seriously reconsider our practice. Some children will require a more targeted approach for speech and language development but targeted doesn't have to mean boring. However a huge percentage of supporting behaviour and communication is done by following what a child is interested in and adapting the learning there and then to their specific level of need. When you get down at their level and you follow a child’s lead, you can really enhance their vocabulary / enrich their learning.

Here is a scenario where a great opportunity to develop speech and vocabulary is missed:

A little girl comes into the nursery and finds her name for self-registration (or rather the picture next to her name. She’s only just turned 3.) Her picture is a kite, which just so happens to be the school emblem so we all have one on our t-shirts. 

The EYP says “look what you’ve got! It’s the same as mine. I have one on my t-shirt.” All credit to the EYP, she didn’t ask “what is it?” The staff know I dislike boring test questions. But I was curious, so I asked the girl and of course she didn’t know. Because not once during her self-registration had she heard from her mum, or the EYP “it’s a kite. You’ve got a kite. I’ve got a kite too. It flies in the sky when it’s windy.”

Yes, the EYP was interacting with the child, getting down at her level and even following her interest. But the child left that interaction with no more vocabulary than when she came in.

These tips would be a good starting point:

• With every nursery activity (such as circle time) consider... is every child benefitting from this activity? Or is it the same chatty few that are participating every time? What changes could be made to ensure every child is included? This might mean smaller groups, shorter time in a circle or adapting your language and expectation according to their need.
• Does every child start with a clean slate every day? Or does your staff use langauge such as "I hope we are going to have a better day than yesterday."
• If a child is "misbehaving" (also known as 'has not received the memo of what your expectations are for the day.') was the activity chosen and led by them...or you?
• If a child is "misbehaving," do they actually understand what is expected of them? Or do you need to support that understanding by using visuals, gestures or simplifying the instruction?

Read the full article here

Child Led Learning & Speech & Language

Inspiring A Love of Reading

If you ask an adult for their earliest memory of stories, books and reading they will often recall the oral tales told by parents, grandparents or the “classic” stories, which adults read to young children. However, since the Industrial Revolution, governments and some employers are often quoted as seeing a decline in literacy, which in turn affects our nation’s ability to compete with the world. (Brown, 2007).

The development of early language and literacy begins in the first three years of life and is closely linked to a child's earliest experiences with books and stories. Current research demonstrates the critical role of these early experiences in shaping brain development.

Views on learning literacy:
Learners should understand and experience the purposes and functions of language before learning to manipulate its constituent parts. 

Oral and written language have to be learned in meaningful and enjoyable circumstances, and thus children construct language as they use it.

Certain conditions support this approach with children, such as: 

• immersion in print, 
• demonstration of how print and books are used,

“Nurture shapes nature”
Giving children an appreciation of a wide range of literature underpins and supports their development of understanding in reading by providing meaningful experience of rhythm, sequence and narrative, tone and intonation, pauses, rhyme, and alliteration. Stories and poems help children understand sequence and narrative, as well as creating meaning, writing sentences, composing their own stories, and making their own non-fiction books based on their interests.

Early literacy research states that:

• Language, reading, and writing skills develop at the same time and are intimately linked;
• Early literacy development is a continuous developmental process that begins in the early years;
• Early literacy skills develop in real-life settings through positive interactions with literacy materials and other people.

Using books:
Children with individual needs will need support in developing a range of appropriate behaviours with books. These will include:

• The physical manipulation or handling of books, such as page turning rather than chewing, tearing or throwing them;
• Learning to look at and pay attention to pictures in books;
• Learning to show recognition of and a beginning of understanding of pictures in books, such as pointing to pictures of familiar objects;
• Gaining an understanding of pictures, events and story comprehension such as imitating an action seen in a picture or talking about the events in a story; and
• Verbally interacting with stories and books alongside increasing their understanding of print in books such as babbling in imitation of reading or running fingers along printed words

Encouraging children with special educational needs to enjoy books
A climate of fun and multi-sensory experience that is based in children’s interests is key to making books and reading enjoyable. Ideally practitioners should not be building barriers but breaking them down according to the unique needs of the children. These can be assisted by the following ideas:

• Encouraging a variety of reading role-models to boost self-esteem alongside skills, e.g. older children and parents.
• Using books with a range of positive images so children can recognize themselves and children like them, including making books about them.
• Bringing in real authors, poets and illustrators to share their enthusiasm, having researched their ability to communicate with the children in your school/setting.
• Providing daily routines such as story times every day in comfortable environments, alongside flexibility (e.g. indoors and outside). Some children with particular needs may need one-to-one stories using such useful tools as multi-sensory Book Boxes in order to understand the concept of story time.

Conclusion:

Teaching language and literacy via the use of books demands the highest quality teaching. This in turn requires knowledge, insight and curiosity about how children learn and develop alongside their unique interests and needs. Practitioners need to:

• display a genuine commitment to holistic learning
• practise joyful, playful teaching and learning.
• show a problem-solving disposition themselves and a ‘can-do’ attitude 

Read the full article here

Vision 2 Provision

Julie Fisher took the keynote session for the launch event of our EYFS Leadership Development course. The session asked some challenging questions of the Headteachers and EYFS leaders who were participating and offered them a chance to reflect on what aspects of their provision need to be improved over the year ahead:

• how would you articulate your vision for the education of EYFS children in your school?
• how confident are all staff who work in the setting at articulating the vision?
• how is the vision bought to life in everyday practice and provision?
• what is your understanding of how young children learn?
• does your setting allow for these preferences and approaches to flourish?
• are all of your staff confident with the 'Characteristics of Effective Learning'?
• what balance is there between adult led, child led and adult initiated learning in your setting?
• how effectively is the outdoor environment used to strengthen and enrich provision?
• is your timetable allowing for optimum learning

There are five more sessions to follow this, where EYFS leads will reflect on the key questions and strengthen/shape their vision for provision.

If you are a Havering EYFS Lead and would like to join, just look for the sessions on the Havering CPD Portal. The next date is the 4th December (half day- repeated in the afternoon) at Mead Primary.