Studying Early Years: A Guide to Work-Based Learning

• Are you studying early years in the work place, to gain further qualifications?
• Do you want help in developing the study skills you need to become a reflective student and practitioner?
• Do you want to get ideas and strategies for using your work experiences effectively for your assignments? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then this is the book for you

Studying early years in the work place in order to gain further qualifications and awards provides many exciting yet challenging opportunities for practitioners. In to become a reflective student and practitioner researcher it is imperative to think critically, analyse, explore and evaluate ideas or concepts in more depth.

This book provides a framework for developing these important skills as well as providing support for the challenges and changes that early years practitioners face on a day-to-day basis. It provides ideas and strategies for identifying a personal learning style in order to use your work experiences effectively for a variety of work-based assignments.

The author provides a Key Components Framework (KCF) for work-based learning. It supports you in coming out of your ‘comfort zone’ and taking risks in your learning. The three strands of the KCF provide opportunities to:

• Reflect upon how external factors - such as government initiatives - can influence and impact on practice
• Consider how personal factors - such as cultural background - can impact on learning and practice
• Acknowledge the ‘hidden skills’ - such as ability to problem solve - that early years practitioners need in order to achieve in today’s rapidly changing early years sector

Studying Early Years is an essential guide for all early years students and particularly those pursuing work-based qualifications such as the Early Years Foundation degree.

Anne Rawlings
Anne began her career as a nurse and then trained to be a teacher as a mature student in 1971. All her training since then has been through a work based route. She currently leads a team of multi-professional early years professionals in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Education at Kingston University.

Daryl Maisey
Daryl originally qualified as a teacher in 1987. Since then she has been fortunate to have gained experience of working across different key stages. Her passion for early years stemmed from an initial interest of working with children with special educational needs. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University working across different programmes from Early Years Education to Primary Teaching and is actively involved in working towards future programmes to promote multi-professional working.

Helen Sutherland
Helen started her career as a nursery nurse working in a variety of early year's settings. All of Helen's following training has been through a work based route. She became an early years lecturer in Further Education, teaching childcare and educational courses. After becoming involved in the running of the Foundation Degree in Early Years she went on to except a post with the early years team at Kingston University.

Jo Dallal
Jo started her working career in Social Work when she worked for the London borough of Barnet and then the borough of Kingston upon Thames. She began teaching in 1983 and embarked on several training courses as part of her continuous professional development, last year having completed her M.A. in professional studies in education. She currently leads the Foundation Degree in Early Years, Management and Leadership within the Faculty of Design Studies at Kingston University.

Jessica Johnson
Jessica has recently joined the Early Years Team at Kingston University bringing with her multi-disciplinary expertise. Her career has included Health Visiting, lecturing across disciplines in Further Education, freelance training with a focus on Behaviour Management, developing a peer mediation programme in a Junior School, family and parenting workshops. As a Local Authority Early Years Training Co-ordinator she experienced first hand the changing requirements for Early Years practitioners, leading to her direct involvement in teaching and managing an Early Years Sector-endorsed Foundation Degree programme.