Welcome to our September Newsletter
Attention early years professionals!
Don't miss out on the ultimate time-saving gem of the month! Our exclusive newsletter is hot off the press, designed especially for you! Discover a treasure trove of free resources and must-know updates that will revolutionise your childcare business.
Let's dive into it.
Pedagogical Approaches
As we head into the new academic year, we delve into the topic of 'pedagogical approaches’ and choosing methods and practices that truly align with the children's needs. No matter which approach (or approaches) you embrace in your setting, the focus remains on the children and helping parents grasp your approach, enabling them to contribute to their child's development at home.
Plunging into Pedagogy
Tuesday 19th September 2023, 10.00am
As early years educators, we are aware that, within their learning environment, children's development, behaviour and relationships are supported by several pedagogical approaches (sometimes combined), which focus on active learning, play-based activities and holistic development. Gina Bale and Dr Kathryn Peckham will unpack methods and practices used and help us understand how we can engage our teams and encourage parents to get involved with our approaches.
Why not subscribe to our YouTube channel? You can watch all our industry webinars free of charge here!
New apprenticeship funding rules for employers – help is at hand!
The ESFA has recorded and published some helpful videos, to support employers with the new 2023/24 apprenticeship funding rules which came into effect on 1st August.
The helpful videos can be found on the ESFA YouTube channel here and include the funding rules, advertising apprenticeship vacancies on the Apprenticeship Service and Apprenticeship Service updates and developments.
Here is a short summary of the changes themselves:
New Ofsted blog post hot off the press
A new post, “School inspection update September 2023 – changes to how we inspect schools” has just been published on the Ofsted: schools and further education & skills (FES) blog. With pupils and teachers now returning to school for a new academic year, this blog gives an overview of some of the recent changes to the school inspection handbook and the way Ofsted inspects schools.
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Improve Team Morale and Camaraderie – Get Involved In National Fitness Day
As early years educators, we obviously know how crucial it is to teach our little ones about staying healthy and active. And you know what's even better? Leading by example! National Fitness Day gives us the perfect chance to do just that, and it's also a nudge for our team to join in the fun. Don't forget to check out all the fantastic online resources to kickstart everyone’s fitness journey – it can be as gentle as you like.
How To Guide: Different ways of learning and the importance of improvement
Can you remember the last time you learned something new? Perhaps it was learning to drive, or how to cook a new recipe, or how to use a new computer programme, some new words in a foreign language, or how to propagate a plant, or change a light bulb…. We could come up with a long list, and the list would be endless because learning is a lifelong activity which means that we are learning something new every day.
We might listen to something on the radio, watch a new film or learn a new way of doing something by trial and error and just ‘getting stuck in’. It could be something life-changing and of global importance, like discovering what makes a cancer cell reproduce or not; or it could simply be a new way of tying our shoelaces more efficiently or a different way to do our hair. Learning is what we do every day.
Yet many of us are so conditioned to believe that ‘learning’ is what we do at school or nursery, and that it is something that a teacher does ‘to us’, that we often forget our own part in the process. We believe that ‘they teach, and we learn’ which makes it a very passive event, something that happens to us, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
So, what is the relationship between teaching and learning really about? And how can we help the process by being open to hearing others’ viewpoints?
Why engage your senses for mental health?
Connecting with your senses can be good for your mental health. To give a very rudimentary explanation, but one I am confident will resonate with many; take the experience of depression. Most people have at some time or other in their lives experienced feeling depressed. I will assume you have. And when you felt depressed, I imagine your instinct was to hide away, to shut down, to withdraw from sensation. Indeed, it has been shown that when you are depressed your senses can be dulled, particularly your sense of smell.
Depression takes you inward. When you connect with the sensory world, stretch out a hand to find out what something feels like, marvel at the way the dew catches the light, take a nibble of a friend’s dinner in a restaurant, you move outwards. In the same way that depression is inwards, an engagement with the sensory world is outwards, it pulls in the opposite direction. Connecting with the sensations you are experiencing is preventative of stress, anxiety, and depression.
Parenta has gone viral on TikTok!
Have you checked out our recent TikTok content? You definitely don't want to miss it! Our entertaining and engaging videos put the spotlight on the latest happenings in the early years field, offering a light-hearted perspective on our beloved industry.
Find us on TikTok at @parenta_ and see our videos for yourself!
We hope you found this month’s newsletter useful.
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