CPD in an early years setting

How to provide professional development for early years practitioners within the Wiggle & Shake project was something we gave a lot of consideration in the planning stages.

We knew that enabling practitioners to attend training courses could be challenging in terms of staffing ratios in nurseries which are open from 8am to 6pm.

To overcome these challenges we were very excited by our idea of having a ‘cascading’ model of CPD – I, as the music leader, would provide training for a small number of staff who would ‘cascade’ their new knowledge and skills down to their colleagues.  Once the project was underway, however, we got cold feet about how this would work in practice.  Would practitioners be able to find the time in their working day to pass on their knowledge in a structured way?  When we consulted staff about what music-related CPD they wanted – and their preferred CPD format (courses, watching videos, reading etc.) - almost all said that they preferred to attend training courses.  The topics the majority of practitioners wanted to learn about were:

• The research evidence for the benefits of music in early childhood
• Skills and resources for using instruments with groups of children.

So I created a 2 hour training session around these 2 topics which we ran 3 times.  Over 30 people took part – managers, nursery practitioners, children’s centre family team practitioners, childminders, volunteers, reception staff from a neighbouring school and music service staff.  Feedback about the sessions was good.

But how to reach those who couldn’t attend the sessions?  I decided to create a CPD resource pack for each of the settings.  The packs each contain copies of handouts and links to resources for the training sessions, the project CD, printed copies of a selection of research articles discussed during the training session, copies of more introductory articles about music making in early childhood such as this one by Susan Young.

The books I recommend to practitioners who want to learn more about music are Susan Young’s Music with the under-fours and Pound and Harrison’s Supporting musical development in the early years.  I wanted to include a book like these in the pack and fortunately I managed to find several second-hand copies of Supporting musical development in the early years online for only a couple of pounds. 

So each setting now has one of these lovely looking packs.  Will they just gather dust in the staff room?  Well, no.  We’ve decided to use underspent funds form one area of the project budget to offer each staff member a dedicated couple of hours CPD time to read articles in the pack.  This will ensure that my knowledge of early childhood music research will be shared more widely, thereby reaching more practitioners, and potentially for years to come when the project has ended.

I’d be interested to hear about how other provide CPD within their early years projects.