Early Years Senior Practitioner Level 5

In this unit, you’ll focus on how to provide a safe and secure early years environment, take a detailed look at how babies develop, and the care and support they need along the way. You’ll discover the right way to take care of their skin, teeth, and hair, support them with potty training, and with aspects of their daily routine like nappy changing and sleep time. You’ll also learn how to deal with rare but real threats that can occur within the childcare setting such as choking and SIDS, and gain a good understanding of the childhood immunisation schedule. Importantly, you’ll also learn how best to support the nutritional needs of babies and children, and discover how you can support parents with breast or formula feeding.

Moving on, you’ll delve into the importance of wellbeing and resilience during the early years of a child’s development, and how to lead staff members in engaging positively with children to build their self-esteem. You’ll discover how to promote a healthy lifestyle, work co-operatively with colleagues to meet the needs of babies and children, and how to work in partnership with parents and carers.

Throughout the course of the third unit, you’ll analyse the theories underpinning the behaviour of babies and children during the early years. You’ll support children in managing their own behaviour, and learn the importance of engaging with parents when they’re in need of additional support. You’ll also develop a broad understanding of early brain development, and how negative childhood experiences can have a long-term health impact

In unit four, you’ll gain a solid understanding of children’s speech, language, and communication development from birth to seven years, as well as the terminology used within these discussions. You’ll explore intervention strategies that can be used if a child’s speech and language isn’t developing as it should, and how to motivate and lead team members to develop children’s skills in this area. You’ll also investigate ways that speech and language can be promoted through day-to-day activities.

Throughout this unit, you’ll plan, lead, and review purposeful play opportunities and educational programmes with colleagues and other professionals to meet the individual needs of children within the current early education curriculum requirements. This will include focusing on communication and language, literacy, mathematics, and other areas. You’ll also discover ways to encourage children to participate in activities, and lead staff in developing effective strategies with children to enhance their group learning and socialisation. You’ll lead discussions about children’s individual progress and oversee the planning cycle, as well as consider philosophical approaches to how children learn when developing your own practice.

Moving on, you’ll investigate and explain the sequence and rate of different aspects of a child’s development, such as cognition, speech and language, and literacy and numeracy. You’ll also consider the reasons why a child’s development may not follow the pattern normally expected, and how development can be influenced by a range of personal and external factors. You’ll analyse the importance of identifying developmental delays early on, along with the benefits of working as part of a wider team to provide additional help and support to a child. Also, you’ll examine the significance of attachment, and the effect that different types of transitions can have upon children. In addition to this, you’ll explore the different methods of assessing, recording, and monitoring children’s development, and how important accurate documentation is.

Over the course of the seventh unit, you’ll discover and explore the importance of providing children with a language-rich environment to support their budding literacy skills. You’ll examine the stages of language and communication development that children move through as they grow, and learn how to interact with children to support their individual needs. You’ll understand and explain the use of systematic synthetic phonics, and use strategies to plan activities which encourage skills like reading and writing.

Next, you’ll discover how you can most effectively support developing mathematical skills in your role as Senior Practitioner. You’ll investigate why mathematics is so crucial to children’s everyday lives, and how working alongside others as part of a team can best help them to develop their skills. You’ll also explore how you can support children in their understanding of mathematical concepts like weights and volumes, whilst working in partnership with parents.

In unit nine, you’ll gain a solid understanding of the current legislation that underpins safeguarding and child protection, and the local and national policies involved. You’ll investigate how why inquiries and serious case reviews are required, and discuss the role that you’ll play as a Senior Practitioner in helping to keep children safe. Also, you’ll liaise with different organisations to develop or review safeguarding procedures, and mentor and support your team to take an active role in safeguarding.

Next, you’ll study the legislative framework for health and safety, confidentiality of information, and promoting the welfare of children. You’ll demonstrate that you understand how to comply with health, safety, and risk management, whilst supporting others to do the same. You’ll learn how to complete all relevant records and reports, contribute to the development of policy, and monitor procedures for controlling infection. Moving on, you’ll discover how to identify common childhood illnesses, and monitor the health of children when required.

Moving on, in this unit, you’ll gain an understanding of the importance of equality, diversity, and inclusion within an early years environment and the potential consequences that can occur when this isn’t achieved. You’ll learn how to challenge discrimination and exclusion in policy and practise, and support others to do the same. You’ll also propose improvements to address shortfalls in current processes, and learn how to balance your own individual rights with your duty of care.

Throughout unit twelve, you’ll examine legislation and national frameworks relevant to the role of Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo). You’ll gain an understanding of how the Disability Access Fund and Early Years Pupil Premium are allocated and used, as well as what sources of additional training are available to early years staff. You’ll investigate the specific needs of children for whom English is an additional language, and appreciate the role of different professionals involved with SEND in an early years setting. Importantly, you’ll also discuss the pressures that families may face when caring for children with SEND.

Throughout this unit, you’ll evaluate why it’s so important to work in effective partnership with others. You’ll analyse how this results in better outcomes for children, and how to overcome barriers to working as part of an effective partnership. You’ll gain a thorough understanding of your own responsibilities within this area, evaluate your own working relationships, and agree on common objectives.

Next, you’ll learn the features of effective team performance, and identify the challenges faced by both established and developing teams. You’ll investigate ways of developing and maintaining trust and accountability, analyse the effectiveness of different management styles, and compare methods of addressing conflict. You’ll also identify the components of positive team culture, and developing a shared vision. You’ll explore the importance of sharing skills and knowledge between team members, and how to agree roles and responsibilities. Additionally, you’ll consider the right ways to provide performance feedback to team members, and how to manage them when performance is not up to standard.

Next, you’ll gain further understanding of your own responsibilities when recording information and producing reports, and the responsibilities of others. You’ll learn the importance of producing accurate and coherent records, and how to make sure they’re complete, up-to-date, and comply with all relevant standards. Additionally, you’ll investigate ways in which you should respond to feedback from those who receive your records and reports, and evaluate how they can be used to provide evidence for the basis of judgements and decisions.

Throughout unit sixteen, you’ll develop an understanding of the requirements and principles of the early years framework. You’ll be able to evaluate policies and procedures for monitoring learning and development, safeguarding and welfare, budgeting, and more. You’ll investigate ways to prepare an area within the work setting, being able to explain how it support’s a child’s learning and development. You’ll support others to participate in and reflect upon action research to improve outcomes for babies and children, and review approaches to active participation for parents and carers.

Moving on, you’ll investigate and explain the importance of continually improving knowledge and practise. You’ll compare sources and systems of support for professional development, and evaluate your own performance and knowledge against standards and benchmarks. You’ll produce a plan for your own professional development, establish a process to evaluate the effectiveness of your plan, and explain the importance of reflective practise to improve performance.

Throughout the final unit, you’ll gain an understanding of each of the areas of learning and development, and how they are interdependent. You’ll use different sources to plan work for children, and help them to engage in their own learning. You’ll learn how to use language that’s accurate and appropriate to support children’s learning activities, and demonstrate that you can reflect on your own practise to make changes and improvements.