By Heather Pearne
Operations Manager of Bows & Arrows group, a Partner of East of England Early Years Stronger Practice Hub
If you ask any early years educator, leader or provider about their biggest challenge facing them at the moment, it is highly likely the words ‘recruitment’ or ‘retention’ or ‘quality of staff’ would probably come up.
The statistics paint a worrying picture. Research conducted by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition research (2023) found 57% of their respondents were considering leaving the early years sector all together. Combined with this, the Department for Education (2024) also estimated that around 35,000 additional staff members nationally would be needed between December 2023-Septmeber 2025 to fulfil its expansion plan.
Whilst there are initiative at a national level the question is, what can we do at setting level?
Thinking about Apprentices
Apprenticeships are nothing new, even Charles Dickens references these in ‘Great Expectations’! For many settings this will be something that already exists in your staffing structure. However, are you considering how to maximise apprentices within your workforce as part of your recruitment and improvement strategy?
The recruitment crisis is not going anywhere, and we have to start thinking about the long game. If we cannot find level 2’s or 3’s then the only solution is to grow your own.
At Bows and Arrows, we made a conscious decision to think more deeply about our apprenticeship offer. Whilst there is an element of needing people to fulfil ratio, we also reflected on wanting to make our apprentices as knowledgeable as possible as we recognized that there sometimes was a gap in the depth of knowledge which impacts on their ability to become highly effective teachers and educators.
High quality staff mean high quality practice for children. There are ample instances noted in the Early Years Evidence Store of the impact of skilled educators on having positive outcomes for children.
For example, “Evidence consistently shows that educators can implement approaches that benefit young children’s personal, social and emotional development”. However, the key is having skilled educators that know why and how they are going to deliver this. Investing further in the skills and knowledge of your apprentices gives a person an opportunity to become proficient and knowledgeable in their role, thus having a long term impact on that individual and potentially the sector as a whole
Reflective Questions
We often ask this about children but do we do it regularly for staff? Often we are just grateful that someone is coming to help that we may have a propensity to throw them in at the deep end and then sometimes be surprised why they are not staying afloat
Reflecting on the on-boarding, first few weeks or months may make you think about what works well and what could be better.
As learners, apprentices may be the only one in their setting or working on a completely different unit than others. Therefore, having that person to ask for help or talk with can be hard. It then is considering where is that apprentice based for their off the job hours and what accountability do we as their leaders take to ensure we know what they are learning, what support they need and engage them regularly in reflective conversation.
How do we see apprentices at our setting?
When you think of your apprenticeship offer are they seen by every member of the team as an asset to your workforce? It is making sure apprentices feel included and that our terminology and treatment shows that. Saying things like “they are only the apprentice” inherently creates that bias that they are less than in your team. Everyone has value, a voice and a role.
Possibly you have had limited success with apprentices in the past. It is taking the opportunity to reflect on why; was it that individual or is there something we could adapt another time to make this better.
What are we putting into this?
Time is never our friend in early years! In an ideal world, many of us would be keen to dedicate more time to teaching and development of staff. However, is there a reliance on the formal apprenticeship trainer to deliver all the value added input? Apprentices will only make impactful educators if we think consciously about what we share and teach.
It is thinking about creative ways to maximize the time that you have. Are apprentices regularly encouraged to watch or be a part of good practice but then also take the few minutes afterwards to reflect on what they saw and give them something to try independently.
Are we regularly entering into reflective conversations with apprentices about their practice? Those precious 2-3 minute conversations can provide a teaching and learning opportunity. Consider setting your apprentices a focus for the month to observe and then set aside a ten minute reflection time about what they picked up on and what they will do next.
Case Study
At Bows and Arrows, we asked ourselves these questions and reflected on how we could improve our offer.
As a result, we devised an internal program, in a way to maximize off the job hours, which helped to create a community of learners. Every 2 weeks, apprentices can come together to either have direct training with their formal provider or a session with one of our team. We felt that there were so many things that to us as an organization were important to in still and learn about to become effective practitioners at our settings. The beauty in this is that it was completely tailored to our setting. Every setting has a unique ethos, set of values, curriculum and vision.
Taking time to in still and teach this to your next generation allows a deeper level of knowledge leading to greater impact at the setting they currently work. We’ve found that employing this approach not only has impact on the knowledge and skills of our apprenticeship cohort, but the impact is being seen in practice with these apprentices being more confident and engaged in learning. We aim to continue running this program also expanding our training and coaching offer beyond our apprentices.
Success story:
Every person in early years needs to start somewhere. We have been fortunate to see the positive growth journeys of so many apprentices. I wanted to highlight one of our incredible managers. She started with us as an apprentice back in 2013. Her journey highlights the importance of support and encouragement. Supporting her as the apprentice saw her blossom into an incredible practitioner by taking the time to teach, support and develop. By seeing potential and encouraging her to grow, we encouraged her to move settings and take roles as a senior as well as completing her SENDCo qualification. This progressed to being a deputy. Under an experienced manager who mentored and supported, she took the brave step of feeling ready for management, thriving and being ready for the challenges. She now is an incredibly passionate and skilled manager with a wealth of experience. This story shows the importance of growing your own but also investing time and encouragement each step of the process.
In summary
You get what you put in. We found, if you allow a training provider to do it all there will be practical gaps that you really want apprentices to know to become successful in your organization. We want our apprentices to stay with us and be successful. Even if they end up moving from your setting, that is a win for the sector if we have passionate, trained and engaged practitioners as this will maximize learning for children wherever they go to next.
Everyone needs to start somewhere, We all need an opportunity to grow and making the most of an apprenticeship opportunity may mean that you are growing future leaders.
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