Early Years Educator Apprenticeship Standard Level 3

Indi­vid­ual employ­ers will set selec­tion cri­te­ria, but it is like­ly to include 5 GCSEs at grade C/4 and above includ­ing Eng­lish and Maths; a rel­e­vant Lev­el 2 Ear­ly Years Prac­ti­tion­er Appren­tice­ship; oth­er rel­e­vant qual­i­fi­ca­tions and experience. 

You will also require a suit­able sup­port­ive employ­er who will guide you through your Appren­tice­ship. If you do not have an employ­er already you can apply for Appren­tice­ship vacan­cies are adver­tised on our web­site — https://​www​.peter​bor​ough​.ac​.uk/​a​p​p​r​e​n​t​i​c​e​s​h​i​p​s​/​a​p​p​r​e​n​t​i​c​e​s​h​i​p​-​v​a​c​a​n​cies/

We strong­ly advise you to com­plete a min­i­mum of 2 weeks work expe­ri­ence with your employ­er pri­or to the start of your Appren­tice­ship to ensure it is a suit­able organ­i­sa­tion for your needs. 

Appren­tices must suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete a Lev­el 3 Ear­ly Years Edu­ca­tor qual­i­fi­ca­tion and Lev­el 3 Award in Pae­di­atric First Aid. You then have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to progress onto a high­er level/​degree appren­tice­ship or fur­ther full time edu­ca­tion at university. 

Suc­cess­ful learn­ers can also con­tin­ue to work with­in the child­care and gain pro­mo­tion, pos­si­ble job roles include: Child­care Assis­tant, Nurs­ery Assis­tant, Pre — School Assis­tant and Nanny.

With addi­tion­al expe­ri­ence, an Ear­ly Years Edu­ca­tor can become the man­ag­er of an ear­ly years setting.

Appren­tices will gain the skills, knowl­edge and behav­iours required for Ear­ly Years Educator. 

Knowl­edge:
• The expect­ed pat­terns of children’s devel­op­ment from birth to 5 years, and have an under­stand­ing of fur­ther devel­op­ment from age 5 to 7.
• The sig­nif­i­cance of attach­ment and how to pro­mote it effec­tive­ly.
• A range of under­pin­ning the­o­ries and philo­soph­i­cal approach­es to how chil­dren learn and devel­op, and their influ­ence on prac­tice.
• How children’s learn­ing and devel­op­ment can be affect­ed by their stage of devel­op­ment and indi­vid­ual cir­cum­stances such as mov­ing school, birth of a sib­ling, fam­i­ly break­down and adop­tion and care
• The impor­tance of pro­mot­ing diver­si­ty, equal­i­ty and inclu­sion, ful­ly reflect­ing cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences and fam­i­ly cir­cum­stances.
• The impor­tance to children’s holis­tic devel­op­ment of:
 — speech, lan­guage and com­mu­ni­ca­tion
 — per­son­al, social and emo­tion­al devel­op­ment
 — phys­i­cal devel­op­ment
• Sys­tem­at­ic syn­thet­ic phon­ics in the teach­ing of read­ing, and a range of strate­gies for devel­op­ing ear­ly lit­er­a­cy and math­e­mat­ics.
• The poten­tial effects of, and how to pre­pare and sup­port chil­dren through, tran­si­tions and sig­nif­i­cant events in their lives.
• The cur­rent ear­ly edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum require­ments such as the Ear­ly Years Foun­da­tion Stage.
• When a child is in need of addi­tion­al sup­port such as where a child’s progress is less than expect­ed. how to assess with­in the cur­rent ear­ly edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum frame­work using a range of assess­ment tech­niques such as prac­ti­tion­ers observ­ing chil­dren through their day to day inter­ac­tions and obser­va­tions shared by par­ents and/​or car­ers.
• The impor­tance of under­tak­ing con­tin­ued pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment to improve own skills and ear­ly years prac­tice.
• The legal require­ments and guid­ance on health and safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of infor­ma­tion, safe­guard­ing and pro­mot­ing the wel­fare of chil­dren.
• Why health and well-being is impor­tant for babies and chil­dren
• How to respond to acci­dents, injuries and emer­gency sit­u­a­tions.
• Safe­guard­ing poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, includ­ing child pro­tec­tion, recog­nise when a child is in dan­ger or at risk of abuse, and know how to act to pro­tect them. Types of abuse include domes­tic, neglect, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and sex­u­al.
• How to pre­vent and con­trol infec­tion through ways such as hand­wash­ing, food hygiene prac­tices and deal­ing with spillages safe­ly.

You gain the skills to be able to:
• Analyse and explain how children’s learn­ing and devel­op­ment can be affect­ed by their stage of devel­op­ment and indi­vid­ual cir­cum­stances such as the needs of chil­dren learn­ing Eng­lish as an addi­tion­al lan­guage from a vari­ety of cul­tures
• Pro­mote equal­i­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty and anti-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tice.
• Plan and lead activ­i­ties, pur­pose­ful play oppor­tu­ni­ties and edu­ca­tion­al pro­grammes which include the learn­ing and devel­op­ment areas of cur­rent ear­ly edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum require­ments.
• Ensure plans ful­ly reflect the stage of devel­op­ment, indi­vid­ual needs and cir­cum­stances of chil­dren and pro­vid­ing con­sis­tent care and respond­ing quick­ly to the needs of the child.
• Pro­vide learn­ing expe­ri­ences, envi­ron­ments and oppor­tu­ni­ties appro­pri­ate to the age, stage and needs of indi­vid­ual and groups of chil­dren.
• Encour­age children’s par­tic­i­pa­tion, ensur­ing a bal­ance between adult-led and child-ini­ti­at­ed activ­i­ties.
• Engage in effec­tive strate­gies to devel­op and extend children’s learn­ing and think­ing, includ­ing sus­tained shared think­ing.
• Sup­port and pro­mote children’s speech, lan­guage and com­mu­ni­ca­tion devel­op­ment.
• Sup­port children’s group learn­ing and social­i­sa­tion.
• Mod­el and pro­mote pos­i­tive behav­iours expect­ed of chil­dren such as turn tak­ing and keep reac­tions and emo­tions pro­por­tion­ate.
• Sup­port chil­dren to man­age their own behav­iour in rela­tion to oth­ers.
• Plan and pro­vide activ­i­ties to meet addi­tion­al needs, work­ing in part­ner­ship with par­ents and/​or car­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als, where appro­pri­ate.
• Car­ry out and record obser­va­tion­al assess­ment accu­rate­ly.
• Iden­ti­fy the needs, inter­ests and stages of devel­op­ment of indi­vid­ual chil­dren.
• Make use of for­ma­tive and sum­ma­tive assess­ment, track­ing children’s progress to plan next steps and shape learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.
• Dis­cuss children’s progress and plan next stages in their learn­ing with the key per­son, col­leagues, par­ents and/​or car­ers.
• Com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly in Eng­lish in writ­ing and ver­bal­ly. For exam­ple, in the record­ing of admin­is­tra­tion of med­i­cine, com­plet­ing children’s obser­va­tion­al assess­ments and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with par­ents and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als.
• Engage in con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and reflec­tive prac­tice to improve own skills, prac­tice, and sub­ject knowl­edge (for exam­ple, in Eng­lish, math­e­mat­ics, music, his­to­ry, or mod­ern for­eign lan­guages).
• Plan and car­ry out phys­i­cal care rou­tines suit­able to the age, stage and needs of the child.
• Pro­mote healthy lifestyles for exam­ple by encour­ag­ing babies and young chil­dren to con­sume healthy and bal­anced meals, snacks and drinks appro­pri­ate for their age and be phys­i­cal­ly active through planned and spon­ta­neous activ­i­ty through the day.
• Under­take tasks to ensure the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of infec­tion for exam­ple hand wash­ing, food prepa­ra­tion and hygiene, deal­ing with spillages safe­ly, safe dis­pos­al of waste and using cor­rect per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment.
• Car­ry out risk assess­ment and risk man­age­ment in line with poli­cies and pro­ce­dures.
• Main­tain accu­rate and coher­ent records and reports and share infor­ma­tion, only when appro­pri­ate, to ensure the needs of all chil­dren are met, such as emo­tion­al, phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal and cul­tur­al.
• Iden­ti­fy and act upon own respon­si­bil­i­ties in rela­tion to health and safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of infor­ma­tion, safe­guard­ing and pro­mot­ing the wel­fare of chil­dren.
• Work co-oper­a­tive­ly with col­leagues and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to meet the needs of babies and chil­dren and enable them to progress.
• Work in part­ner­ship with par­ents and/​or car­ers to help them recog­nise and val­ue the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions they make to the child’s health, well-being, learn­ing and devel­op­ment.
• Encour­age par­ents and/​or car­ers to take an active role in the child’s play, learn­ing and development.

Behav­iours:
These are the behav­iours expect­ed of all Ear­ly Years Edu­ca­tors car­ry­ing out their role:
• Care and com­pas­sion — pro­vide the very best child­care to every child every day com­bined with the abil­i­ty to pro­fes­sion­al­ly chal­lenge poor prac­tice
• Being team-focused — work effec­tive­ly with col­leagues and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als and sup­port the learn­ing and devel­op­ment of oth­ers through men­tor­ing and shar­ing of pro­fes­sion­al exper­tise and expe­ri­ence.
• Hon­esty, trust and integri­ty — devel­op trust by work­ing in a con­fi­den­tial, eth­i­cal and empa­thet­ic man­ner with a com­mon sense and pro­fes­sion­al atti­tude.
• Com­mit­ment to improv­ing the out­comes for chil­dren through inspi­ra­tion and child cen­tred care and edu­ca­tion
• Work in a non- dis­crim­i­na­to­ry way, by being aware of dif­fer­ences and ensur­ing all chil­dren have equal access to oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, devel­op and reach their poten­tial.
• Work­ing prac­tice take into account fun­da­men­tal British val­ues includ­ing democ­ra­cy, the rule of the law, indi­vid­ual lib­er­ty and mutu­al respect and tol­er­ance of those with dif­fer­ent faiths and beliefs.

As an Appren­tice you will be expect­ed to attend col­lege 1 day a month as part of your ongo­ing 20% off – the – job train­ing. Addi­tion­al off – the – job train­ing hours are expect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in the work­place, how­ev­er you may be asked to com­plete tasks at home via Google Class­room and One – file. 

Please note you may also be asked to com­plete addi­tion­al Eng­lish and Maths qual­i­fi­ca­tions as part of the Appren­tice­ship programme.