Welcome to the online site for the Herts Early Years Network. The School of Education at University of Hertfordshire and Hertfordshire Early Years Team are working together to establish local communities of practice for the early years workforce across Hertfordshire and in neighbouring areas. So we welcome all Early Years colleagues from education, health, social care, playwork, voluntary and private organisations, parents, childminding – in fact anyone with a professional interest in young children.

University of Hertfordshire has been awarded the contract to deliver valuable graduate training for nursery, childcare and pre-school professionals across the region from Jan 2012.

The £3.4 million contract is awarded by the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) and the Department for Education (DfE) and is the result of a competitive bid by Lyn Trodd in the School of Education, working in close partnership with a consortium of partners from across the East of England. The consortium, Early Years East, is responsible for providing training and assessment for EYPS for the whole of the East of England. 

Grant Bage, Chief Executive of the consortium’s lead partner ELC said:
“We are proud to lead a consortium of such experienced and highly-regarded educational establishments. UH in particular have a wealth of experience delivering early years workforce training and qualifications. This is an important and valuable programme, that makes a real difference to the quality of children’s lives.”

The graduate-level programme, is the only government-endorsed professional accreditation for the early years sector. It is a recognised national status equivalent to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). EYPS has already been awarded to over 8,300 early years practitioners so far and the consortium’s 490 new entrants to the programme from January will help ensure the East of England has a thorough resource of well-qualified early years practitioners ready to lead and deliver excellent practice in early years settings. 

EYPS was created in 2007 in response to a national consultation on the future of the children’s workforce, which highlighted the need for further reform among those working with very young children. Since its launch the programme has been shown to have raised quality across early years education, with recent research showing that EYPs have a measurable impact on quality across an early years setting, over and above that of employing a early years/education graduate who doesn't hold the status.

Judith Thompson, Assistant Director for Early Years at the CWDC said:
“We look forward to working with our new providers to welcome the next cohort of candidates to join this flagship graduate-level early years programme which is making a real difference to the lives of young children and families."

For anyone who is interested in developing a graduate career in early years, or for anyone who currently works in the sector and would like to gain this valued, recognised status, please contact earlyyears@elc-cambridge.org or visit www.eypseast.org