Great early years practitioners need more than a qualification. They need inspiration, fresh perspectives and access to expertise that helps them build confidence and excel in the role.
That's why enrichment sits at the centre of our redesigned Early Years Educator Level 3 Apprenticeship rather than at the edges of it.
Our core curriculum develops everything the standard requires. What a curriculum can't do on its own is give someone access to the people shaping practice across the sector. So, we partnered with five of them.
Inclusion and SEND
Dingley's Promise shares expertise on what inclusion actually means in early years practice, and how to build environments where every child can thrive. Complementing this, award-winning SEND trainer and neurodiversity specialist Cheryl Warren provides practical insight into supporting neurodivergent children and embedding inclusive practice across a setting.
Teaching and learning
Learners take part in sessions with Alice Sharp, one of the UK's most recognised early years experts and creator of the Adventures with Alice programme. Her creative, child-centred approach encourages practitioners to think differently about learning, curiosity and development, and gives them ideas they can use the following morning.
Play and joy
Ben Kingston-Hughes explores the neuroscience of play and joy, and why children need both. Not as abstract concepts, but as things practitioners can defend and protect in their own rooms when the pressure is on to formalise learning earlier.
Keeping children safe
ECP Safeguarding covers child protection, professional conduct and professional boundaries, including digital professionalism and how to handle low-level concerns. These sessions build the confidence to act on something, not just the knowledge to recognise it.
Why it works
We already teach all of these areas. Apprentices learn inclusion, safeguarding, child development and the role of play as part of the qualification.
What the specialists add is depth. Not what to do, but why it works, and what it looks like when it's done really well.
And they're not bolted on. These sessions sit inside the programme, and a learner's trainer works with them afterwards to turn what they heard into how they practise. Five webinars on their own would change very little. What changes practice is someone helping you use them.
For employers, that means apprentices who bring fresh thinking and current sector knowledge back into your rooms. For learners, it means the confidence, competence and professional curiosity to make a lasting difference to children, families and their settings.
As curriculum leaders, our responsibility isn't simply to deliver qualifications. It's to create learning experiences that inspire, challenge and prepare practitioners for the realities of a modern early years setting.