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Who are you?

An early years' leader who is or aspires to be a manager.


What will you learn?

  • Culture - you will establish and sustain an effective nursery culture by setting the strategic direction within a climate of mutual trust and respect, underpinned by evidence-based practice. 
  • Child development, curriculum and assessment - you will learn how to establish and support high quality early education in your nursery, underpinned by formative assessment and tailored to children’s needs.  
  • Additional and special educational needs and disabilities - you will learn how to ensure all children experience success, enabling colleagues to identify and meet individual needs.  
  • Professional development - you will ensure that colleagues engage in effective and supportive professional development, making use of existing frameworks (including mentoring and coaching) to build upon existing knowledge and skills to improve outcomes for children. 
  • Organisational management - you will learn how to ensure   the protection and safety of children and colleagues through the establishment of effective systems and processes, managing human and financial resources and fulfilling all statutory duties to enable a sustainable and thriving nursery community.
  • Implementation - you will learn how to plan, deliver and sustain change successfully within your context by understanding the stages of implementation and aligning it with wider nursery improvement priorities.
  • Working in partnership - you will effectively work in partnership with all stakeholders, including parents carers, external agencies and services.

What are the benefits for your setting?

We know that all children need early years professionals who are committed to their care and education and are confident learners themselves. Our programme has been developed with early years experts to:

  • Create professionally confident early years teachers, practitioners and leaders.
  • Grow the next generation of early years leaders with the skills and knowledge to use the evidence-base for the benefit of their children and families.
  • Retain the best early years professionals who are excellent, collaborative role models for their nurseries and communities. 
  • Inspire early years leaders who can harness the power of rich learning environments for all children no matter the current circumstances.

Is this programme for me?

Yes, if you lead or aspire to lead a nursery as a manager of a PVI nursery, a headteacher of a school-based or maintained nursery or a childminder with leadership responsibilities.

Programme Overview

Venue: Pate's Grammar School, Cheltenham.

18 month programme comprising:

  • Induction Conference - (full day - face to face)
  • Facilitated face to face Peer Learning - (4 x 4.5 hour sessions)
  • Face to Face delivery events - (3 x full day)

Supported by:

  • Online Learning
  • Setting based implementation project
  • Mentoring

Engagement:  There must be a minimum of 90% engagement in the programme for participants to be eligible for final assessment

Assessment:   Each NPQ is assessed using a case study approach completed within a specified eight day window at the end of the programme.