Early Years SLEs

We are delighted that our Early Years partnership has been designated by the Department for Education as an Early Years Stronger Practice Hub, the first in the Northwest. The programme, part of the DfE’s Early Years Education COVID-19 Recovery Package, aims to support settings to address the impact of the pandemic on young children by sharing effective practice and building lasting local networks.

The Hubs will provide advice, share good practice, and offer evidence-based professional development for all Early Years practitioners across schools, private nurseries and childminders. The Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs programmes are supported by both the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the National Children’s Bureau (NCB).

Stronger Practice Hubs support Early Years settings to improve outcomes for children in their local area, specifically focusing on areas of development that research informs us have been most impacted by COVID-19: personal social and emotional development (PSED); communication and language, and early literacy and maths.

The Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs support settings to adopt evidence-based practice improvements by:

•    establishing local networks of settings to share knowledge and effective practice

•    proactively sharing information and advice on evidence-based approaches – for example, through newsletters, blogs and social media

•    acting as a point of contact for bespoke advice and signposting to other funded support, such as support from a SLE

•    working with the EEF to select evidence-based programmes to fund and make these available to settings

Apply to be an Early Years SLE

We are scaling up our work with Early Years settings and have an exciting opportunity for Early Years specialists to join our system leadership team.

To become an Early Years SLE you must be an outstanding experienced middle or senior leader with extensive knowledge and experience of working in the birth to 5 age range and leading others in effective early years practice. The role will focus on supporting middle and senior leaders in other schools/early years settings. You need to have been in a leadership role, other than Headteacher/Manager, for at least 2 years. Your Headteacher/Manager will be asked to confirm that you’re in an appropriate role and agree that they have the capacity to release you to work in other schools/early years settings.  Please note that higher level teaching assistants within school settings are not eligible to apply. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend a short interview and be expected to attend a full day training. 

If you’re interested, please download our application form here and return to earlyyears@bright-futures.co.uk