Early Childhood team partners in new CPD platform

The Early Childhood team within the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport, has been delighted to have the opportunity to work with PACEY, a professional association for childcare and early years.

Pacey’s knowledge and close connections with its extensive membership, combined with The Open University’s experience in developing online learning, has resulted in the creation of EY smart, a free online training platform for early years professionals which is now available for free via this link. John Parry, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood, has led the team working with Pacey to develop EY smart and says, "The range of bite-size sessions that make up EY smart build into a substantial CPD course which supports all aspects of practice from developing provision and curriculum to preparing for inspection."

The team which also included Dr Jackie Musgrave (Programme Lead for Early Childhood and Education Studies (Primary)), provided advice and guidance throughout production of the materials. John will continue to be involved in the development of Phase 2 which will be launched in Autumn 2020.

Pacey's website describes EY smart as, "a new, innovative approach to training [which] means that everyone in the early years sector now has access to invaluable resources, whenever they want. With short and consise courses, learning has just got a whole lot easier. In fact, all training courses on EY smart take just 10 minutes and can be completed on any device at any time. Each course completed earns users a star and CPD can be evidenced through downloadable personalised reflection documents."