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National Apprenticeship Week #NAW2024

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National Apprenticeship Week 2024 will run from Monday 5th to Sunday 11th February, & is the 17th annual celebration of apprenticeships. The week aims to bring together everyone passionate about apprenticeships to celebrate the value, benefit & opportunity that they bring.

The theme for National Apprenticeship Week 2024 is “Skills for Life”, & gives us all the opportunity to consider how apprenticeships can help individuals to develop the skills & knowledge required for a rewarding career, & employers to develop a workforce with future ready skills.

Apprenticeships are something that we, as a Company, have supported since we began 25 years ago. We believe in their worth & have seen many learners develop into successful members of staff, & even progress to Management level!

Just some of the many benefits:

  • Learn while you earn – £6.40/hr, progression after 12mths for those aged 19+
  • Wealth of transferable knowledge
  • Practical job-specific skills
  • Work alongside experienced staff
  • Gateway to a career
  • Increase in confidence

Requirements:

  • 16yrs+ (no upper age limit)
  • Living in England
  • Not in full time education

All the lucky apprentices that work for us at Early Years Care & Education Ltd also benefit from our amazing infrastructure; they have access to support from their training provider, their management team, their Room Coordinator/mentor, & our fabulous Quality Practice team.

The Quality Practice team is dedicated to supporting apprentices to learn the necessary care routines, & best practice, from the offset of their employment with us. The QP team models how to complete a specific aspect of the daily routine, sets attainable targets & works with apprentices to ensure thorough training dedicated to each individual. We have had a passionate set of apprentices, who have moved through the programme with great success with the support of their team. We’ve worked hard together, creating a group of qualified & confident Early Years Educators, who should be as proud of their achievements as we are of them.

Anna Cam, Quality Practice Manager 

We should also take the opportunity to praise the wonderful training providers that work with us, supplying their valuable time & efforts to help get our learners through their apprenticeships. It’s partly due to their dedication that we can boast about the number of qualified staff we now have following completion. In 2023 alone, we had an incredible 16 members of our team achieve a new or higher qualification, & we look forward to celebrating the successes of many more in 2024.

Get in touch today to enquire – kickstart your Early Years career by joining our growing Company!

Don’t just take my word for what a great choice an Early Years apprenticeship is, read on for comments direct from our learners…

I love my job & I’m really glad that I took the opportunity. It’s really challenging, but also really fun. My experience so far has been better than I ever imagined. It pushes me daily, & helps me grow. I love that my co-workers are so supportive & willing to help me. I have learnt a lot through my apprenticeship, & working hands-on really helps with my coursework as I personally get the experience.

CH

I want to give thanks for the support I received during my apprenticeship, I had a great team & assessor. I was very proud of myself when I achieved my qualification & gained more knowledge. It makes it so easy as now I know what I’m doing. I was interested in the early years industry & thought of doing an apprenticeship because I would get the experience, alongside doing the work. I make a real difference in children’s lives, supporting them in their development & learning, supporting their family throughout. Whilst doing this I create a beautiful bond with the children & family.

FB

I am currently Level 3 qualified & am completing my Level 5. I chose to complete the Level 5 due to moving into higher roles in the Company, so wanting to improve my knowledge of more leadership aspects to allow me to progress more. I love to see the positive impact I can have on children’s lives! I am finding it manageable to complete all my work alongside working full time, & would highly recommend this to others as it is a very rewarding course, I have also learnt lots of new information too! 

KH

I thought starting an apprenticeship in childcare would help me gain practical skills, enhance knowledge, & improve career prospects in a specific field. I chose Early Years so that I could contribute to the development & well-being of young children, fostering a positive impact on their early learning experiences. My experience from beginning until now has been amazing, I’ve been lucky to work with a great team of staff & management. I received all the help & support I needed to complete it, & I knew where to go if I was ever to need some extra help. 

SN

My reasons for choosing to do a higher-level qualification was to improve my career & gain me another qualification. I chose Early Years as this is something I have always wanted to work in & enjoy. The course is very interesting, informative & encouraging me to learn new things. I will always encourage others to do further learning to enhance their career, & to always follow their heart.

LM

 

My experience so far, I can say that I am enjoying the challenges & rewards that come with being part of the Early Years. I encourage others to consider a similar path. The combination of practical experience & alignment with the company’s values has made my journey easier. If you share a passion for Early Years education, this is the place for you.

SA

February at Kingswood

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Dress up days, police, hard hats,fun, experiementingexcellent costume, cat, dress up day, charity event

Throughout February Kingswood Day Nursery have been up to lots of fun and exciting activities. Utilising our loose-themed topic of ‘People Who Help Us’ we have invited visitors to the nursery and have been on an exciting trip out to the Old Police and Fire Museum. The children loved the coach journey to the museum and they particularly enjoyed exploring the inside of the ambulances and fire engines.  Our visitors have been DR Vicky Fletcher a local GP who brought all of her equipment for the children to explore and experiment with. They had great fun finding each other’s heartbeats and checking that their friends and carers didn’t have temperatures by using the thermometers!  We also had a visit from local PCSO’s – Adrian Thomson and Samantha Pacey. The Pre-School children particularly enjoyed dressing up in the police uniforms and trying out the hard hats! The PCSO’s shared lots of useful information about what to do if we need help and reminded us of the all important number to call – ‘999’.

We also hosted a charity event at Kingswood last month. ‘Crackerjacks’ is a local children’s charity who we have continually supported throughout the years. This year we raised money by inviting the children of Kingswood to dress up and have a fun princesses and hero’s day! All the children had an amazing day and dressed up as their favourite characters. The toddlers had a great time making masks by gluing and sticking, glittering and being very creative! As you can see from the pictures they did a great job and wore them with pride.

creativity, mask making, artwork, charity day activitiesmask making activity, charity day, creativitycreative, mask making, charity event, gluing and sticking

At our setting we like to promote diversity and culture and, with this in mind, the toddlers have really embraced learning about Chinese New Year.  The children all made their own lanterns which they decorated and took home, as well as all contributing to a group creative activity of making an enormous Chinese Dragon.

We have recently introduced our lending library where we are further promoting literacy. Children and parents/carers can select and borrow books from the nursery library to share together at home. There is opportunity for even more parental involvement as we always welcome additions to the lending library from books that are no longer favourites in your household. This lending library links in beautifully with the promotion of ‘World Book Day’ and we have been able to provide all parents with a token which entitles them to receive a discount on many books from lots of high street shops.

Our upcoming events in the near future will include a ‘Mother’s Day Workshop’ for our Pre-School children, it’s a great opportunity for parental involvement. We have invited mothers, grandmothers and aunties along with any other influential female role models to attend our workshop on Tuesday 6th March 2018, where we will be baking tiffin, threading love heart cards, making flowers, making and moulding salt dough models and much, much more.

We will all be celebrating and supporting ‘Sport’s Relief’ by taking part in running races and other physical games. The babies will be toddling around our soft surfaced play area, throwing, catching and rolling balls to each other. Whilst our toddlers and pre-school children will be taking part in running races, obstacle courses and trying out their throwing skills with target practice games.

We are expecting a visit from Zoolab on 19th April  with their exotic animals.  The children will have the opportunity to look at & hold snakes, spiders & lots of other creepy crawlies! The expected learning outcomes are that children will discover, explore, investigate and ask questions about the different characteristics of the mini beasts and other animals from all around the world.

We look forward to another exciting term of events and will be back to update you further with other exciting activities!

dress up day, princess, charity eventPretty girl, princess dress, dress up day, charity event