On Tuesday 29th October the whole company staff team came together at Cathedral House, for our Annual Autumn Training Day, to enhance and develop their childcare practice for the future and reflect on the year past.
As a company we have always put a strong emphasis on continual training and development. Our nursery teams work hard throughout the year to improve the care and resources we provide for the children. This is done in a variety of ways; through internal and external training courses; conferences; personal development plans and appraisals; coaching and mentoring; networking; professional qualifications and the sharing of high quality practice.
This year we focused on 2 key areas:
- Boosting Staff Morale and Wellbeing to promote vibrant play, learning and positive behaviour. led by Jenny Mosley – Director and Founder of QCT, The Quality Circle Time (QCT) Model
- STEAM Approaches with Everyday Materials led by Debi Keyte-Hartland, Early Childhood Pedagogical Consultant, Artist-Educator & Trainer
Early Years Consultant Jenny Mosley has, over the past thirty years, developed her highly successful school and early years management models based upon a background of teaching experience, research and collaboration between the Consultancy, Local Authorities and schools. Jenny focused g on "Boosting Staff Morale and Wellbeing - So we have the energy to promote vibrant play, learning and positive behaviour." She discussed positive relationships, managing emotions, as well as behaviour, circle time, puppets and playfulness....and much much more!
Debi is an experienced consultant, trainer, presenter, and workshop leader with over 25 years’ experience in professional learning and development of early childhood educators/settings across the UK and internationally. She is passionate about the expressive arts; creative and imaginative thinking; ecological awareness and identity; and the interests, enquiries, and working theories of young children and the pedagogical approaches that support their development. Debi led a session titled " STEAM approaches in early years: putting the 'A' into STEM". She helped us develop our knowledge around how the Arts can be used to develop Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. And how we can weave these disciplines together to create deep and engaging opportunities for investigation, experimentation, and reasoning. We discussed how STEAM encourages collaboration; designing; evaluation; questioning; and identifying and solving problems that provide rich contexts for developing vocabulary, communication skills, and language.
Our staff team thoroughly enjoyed the day and learnt lots of new activities i.e. modelling activities, circle time, light activities to name a few along with golden moments for wellbeing. An excellent and informative day with lots to take back to our nurseries!
