Evidence informed practice is key to developing your service. Accessing research, good practice and shared experiences from other childcare and early years professionals, and putting these into practice within your own setting, will support you to develop your knowledge, confidence, and skills, ensuring the service you offer is of the highest quality. In doing this you will be able to support your childminding assistant’s professional development. There are a wide variety of places where evidence informed practice can be accessed. In this blog we discuss where you can access evidence informed practice and how you can get your assistant involved to support their professional development.
The Education Endowment Foundation have developed a Guide to Effective Professional Development in the Early Years which includes four areas that should be included in professional development to ensure a balanced approach: Build Knowledge, Motivate Educators, Teaching Techniques and Embed Practice. When you are considering, attending or providing professional development, you should ensure it includes these four areas in order for it to be effective.
Build Knowledge: accessing evidence informed practice
It is important that you access evidence informed practice that is reliable and from a trusted source. The practice should be supported by research and have clear aims and outcomes highlighted for the children. We have brought together some great places to start exploring that will inspire you and give you the confidence to look at your setting in a different way.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) have developed an Early Years Toolkit that brings together the best available evidence on key areas of learning and development. It can support you as a childminder when making decisions on how to improve learning outcomes, and provide you with information, resources, and evidence to share with your assistant. There is a useful Toolkit explainer video on the EEF website.
The Early Years Stronger Practice Hub (SPH) website hosts a wealth of evidence informed practice resources, including training programmes, blogs, case studies, and webinars, as well the Early Years Evidence Store, where you can access resources and training to help you and your assistant to upskill and support children’s learning and development. Take your time to explore the resources and discuss ideas with your assistant. You could also contact your regional Hub to find out what they have to offer.
The Department of Education (DFE) have produced a wealth of guidance to support early years and childcare professionals including Early years child development training, information about the areas of learning in the EYFS, and the Early years experts and mentors programme.
PACEY members and non-members can access a wealth of information and CPD via the PACEY website, including access to News stories and Spotlight pages.
Motivate Educators: Getting your assistant involved
Sharing good practice and evidence informed research with your assistant will allow you to work as a team when implementing new ideas. Your assistant will feel valued and confident if they have a good understanding of why you are doing something new or different. Encourage your assistant to get involved and take the time to share the reasons behind change and how it can be done. This will give them the knowledge and confidence to become involved in the process, which is important, especially if they are a key person. Giving them responsibility will also encourage them to take pride in what they do and continue to improve their knowledge in areas relevant to the children’s development. Methods such as using expert advice to promote a particular practice or supporting any suggestions you make with published research from a reliable source, will mean your assistant is more likely to be motivated and excited by the idea of change.
Teaching techniques: meeting individual needs
Having a good understanding of what teaching techniques work for you and your assistant is key to successfully embedding new practice and supporting professional development. Your assistant may respond to clear instructions that they can carry out, or they may benefit from you modelling the technique and some shadowing support. Some people learn best from spending time making themselves familiar with the evidence and looking at best practice guides to develop their knowledge and understanding before being confident to implement the technique themselves. It is important to discuss professional development with your assistant and consider what will be most effective.
Embed Practice: Reflection
As an employer, you will need to draw up an action plan of how you will embed the technique. You will need to plan in time to reflect on how things are working and monitor your assistant’s performance and development as well as your own. Your action plan should include how you will sustain improvements, for example by having prompts and ques to remind you and your assistant to put techniques into place. It should also clearly explain how frequently the technique will be used and how long for. You could draw up your action plan yourself or ask your assistant to support with its development. When reflecting on newly embedded practice, consider what is working well, and what you feel is an area your assistant may need further support with developing key skills in. This can then be discussed during supervisions. Keep accurate records of these discussions and draw up plans for actions that need to be taken forward. Don’t forget to capture your assistants’ views and ideas on what they feel is working well and any concerns they have. Regularly reflecting on the effectiveness of your setting to deliver high quality childcare and learning will ensure that your setting continues to grow and develop, along with you and your staff.
Next steps
If you are considering employing an assistant, the PACEY Blog: So you are thinking of employing staff Is a great place to start. You can also read about childminder Jane Comeau’s experience of working with a childminding assistant.
If you already employ an assistant, carry out a reflection exercise and consider what is working well and what areas you want to improve. You can then consider if your assistant needs additional support from you to achieve this, or if they may need to access information to update their knowledge, training to allow them to upskill and gain better understanding, or resources to support them with implementing their knowledge and skills within your setting.
