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II have been a teacher for my whole adult life, it was all I wanted to do from the age of eleven (when I realised being an astronomer meant a lot of maths and physics!) I never considered I would step away from the classroom, it was my job for life. Having taught across the primary age ranges, I found my ‘home’ in the Early Years 8 years ago and knew this was the age group for me.
I was a highly experienced, highly skilled, highly trained early years teacher. But somewhere the seed had been planted that perhaps I could develop my skills further and branch out. I’d heard positive things about Islington. A few applications and interviews later and I was successfully recruited to the role of EYFS Consultant, where I’ve been for eight months now (or 2 terms, in teacher-speak).
Being new in the role has meant I’ve visited a wide range of settings and met a range of professionals, all who contribute in some way to Bright Start Islington. I’ve had the privilege of visiting and observing practice in schools, children’s centres, and private and voluntary nurseries. Still being relatively new, I can’t help but compare my Early Years experience so far in Islington to other boroughs I’ve previously worked in.
The most obvious and stark difference is that I can honestly say I didn’t see or meet many colleagues from the Early Years team in my previous borough. The amount of input we received directly related to our Ofsted grade. In Islington however, Early Years services are highly visible and supportive, irrespective of the Ofsted grade. Here, I’ve observed that staff in Early Years settings develop long-lasting supportive professional relationships with members of the Early Years and Childcare Service, who they know are only a phone call or email away if they need support or advice.
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Another thing that really strikes me is how well the different services work collaboratively to ensure positive outcomes for all children. For example, I recently had the honour of being part of a Bright Start working party to develop a self-reflection audit tool that supports Early Years practitioners to improve practice during Stay and Play sessions. Through this piece of work, I saw first-hand the Islington Council ‘CARE’ values being put into practice. I have had to get my head around many new acronyms, and this one stands for collaborative, ambitious, resourceful and empowering. Through this piece of work I saw that all the services worked together to implement a clear vision to improve outcomes for young children.
Another audit tool developed by the Early Years team that I have been particularly impressed by is the Race Equality Audit. This audit tool intrigued me as I wanted to see, in practice, if it could really make a difference to the experience of children from diverse ethnic multi-lingual backgrounds, like myself. The audit tool supports practitioners to reflect on diversity and inclusion within their setting in order to make meaningful changes. I was astounded by the high level of thought and detail that has gone into it, and I have reflected on how I could have improved my previous classroom practice in all areas of the curriculum even further if I had the opportunity to use it. What a difference it would have made to the children’s learning experience to feel that their culture, language and heritage was being represented, respected and valued on a deeper level.
Do I miss classroom teaching? Of course I do! I miss building relationships with the children. I miss those valuable one to one interactions. I miss putting on voices when reading a story to make it come alive! However, my experience, skills and expertise, and all-round teaching wisdom means I’m in a great position to empower Early Years colleagues to be the best they can be for our young Islington learners.
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