Early Years Leadership matters

The last few months have been both the most demanding, and the most rewarding in my career as I've worked with colleagues to make a success of our new Teaching School. We are striving hard to put together programmes which will make a real difference to the quality of provision in Newham and across East London - rather than just organising hundreds of courses.

One of the first results of all this work, is a strong focus on early years leadership. Please share this post with anyone who is teaching in nursery or reception is (or close to) East London and who may be interested. The flyer with more detailed information is here [PDF].

We have lots more to come, and will be widening our focus to include other EYFS providers in due course.

If there’s one message that came across clearly when we were sharing ideas about East London Early Years and Schools Partnership, it’s this: we need to do more to support and develop leaders in the early years.

We heard from primary school EYFS co-ordinators who felt in urgent need to develop their leadership confidence and skills, to make sure that they could continue to develop appropriate and effective early years practice in their schools.

So, I am very pleased to announce that we are now taking applications for the National Professional Qualifications for Middle Leadership (NPQML) and Senior Leadership (NPQSL). In addition, we are planning to develop an additional Early Years Cluster for East London, both face to face and online. This will provide colleagues with the EYFS support and challenge that we all need in today’s uncertain and difficult educational climate. It will also help to ensure that candidates feel there is expert EYFS understanding running through their leadership development.

                                             

East London Early Years and Schools Partnership is offering these two qualifications in collaboration with UCL Institute of Education, rated as the world’s top university for education.

There are a few changes to this cohort, in response to feedback.

·         The face to face elements of each module for the NPQML  and NPQSL and NPQH are now reduced to  just 1 day or approximately 5 hours of study.  This reduces face to face the NPQML to 5 days overall (around 25hours) and the NPQSL to 6 days ( around 30 hours).  We have made this decision as the feedback from the majority indicate that time commitments for school leader are very precious and we are looking for the best use of their time.  Candidates will all continue to have access to the same on-line learning, with an increased focus on virtual discussions and sharing of learning and best practice on the IOE website.

·         Two of the modules will be taught locally at Kaizen Primary School whilst the third elective module will be taught at the IOE. This change has been made to ensure that candidates get the best out of our partnership: convenience and a specific focus on the needs, strengths and challenges of the Newham context, together with the university experience and a chance to meet and network with colleagues across London and beyond so that we remain outward-looking and in touch with leading edge practice in leadership.

We are also promoting a new model which the IOE has been found to be highly effective, in which two or more teachers from the same school work towards the NPQSL and NPQML at the same time. In this model, the NPQSL candidate takes on an agreed aspect of the School Improvement Plan and then delegates some of the activities to the NPQML candidate. This means that both teachers will be working collaboratively on school improvement, and your school will be able to see the impact of the leadership qualification on outcomes for children and the quality of teaching.

There is more information in the attached document. By applying through ELEYSP you will get a £210 discount for the NPQML and a £280 discount for the NPQSL. Scholarships are also available.

The deadline for receipt of applications to start in Autumn 2015 is 1pm on Monday 7^th September 2015. 

However, if we receive your application before 1pm on Monday 6^th July 2015, you will get access to the reading materials over the summer. For applications received after 6^th July but before the deadline of 7^th September, you may not get access to the reading materials until the autumn term.