Parent & pioneer: Transforming Early Years education in Feltham
by Victoria Hirst
Director of Communities
The Reach Foundation
Mum of three, mature BA graduate and qualified teacher, Dawn Kiefer, is a remarkable individual.
Twelve or so years ago, believing passionately in the value of an excellent education, Dawn jumped at the opportunity to send her eldest child to a new all-through school opening up in her local community. The school promised strong relationships between the home and the school, consistently excellent teaching and a strong extra-curricular offer to support pupils’ broader development.
Today, with one child having completed their university degree, another about to start Sixth Form, and the third beginning their GCSE journey, Dawn could be forgiven for wanting to take a breather.
Not quite. In fact, completely the opposite. Because from September, she will be starting out as an Early Career Teacher at Reach Academy Feltham having pioneered the way for the Early Years workforce development in Feltham.
Looking back on her experiences, Dawn puts the decision to enrol into an Early Years Foundation degree, while working full-time in a nursery, down to “a mid-life crisis” (her words, not ours!).
Only this one hasn’t involved a new set of golf clubs, a Ferrari or an increasing addiction to PlayStation. Rather, it has meant hours of studying after work once the children were in bed, weekend sessions in the library reading about child development, scrupulous referencing checks, midnight essay writing and weekly evening, 5-hour degree sessions alongside ten other equally motivated and incredibly impressive peers.
Four years on, this hard work and resilience has more than paid off. Speaking on a parent and pupil voice panel last week to a room of ~ninety cradle-to-career leaders, Dawn exuded confidence, passion and a real commitment to her career in education which will no doubt continue to go from strength to strength.
Dawn’s success is by no means unique, though. Dawn is part of a pioneering group of Early Years degree students in Feltham—writing new stories about what it means to be an Early Years Education professional.
At the time of writing, there are now four new teachers working locally with an Early Years specialism with (at least) four more about to begin their teacher training this September. Each individual is local to the area. Each one has built strong, trusting relationships within their own Early Years setting and across others in the local area. This peer support network has been a vital element throughout their journey from Level 3, to BA top up, to Qualified Teacher Status; the aim is that this network continues to act as a professional peer support network, strengthening the Early Years workforce in Feltham.
Why, and how, has this work in the Early Years been prioritised?
There is a wide range of evidence suggesting that prioritising the development of the very start of the cradle-to-career pipeline makes sense for two key reasons.
Firstly, it makes sense from a child development perspective. Ninety percent of a child’s brain development happens before the age of five (NHS, 2024) and in the first year of life more than one million new connections are formed every second in a child’s growing brain (Parent-Infant Foundation, 2024). Crucially, too, children’s development at 22 months has been shown to predict their qualifications at 22 years (Parent-Infant Foundation, 2024).
Secondly, it makes sense from an economic perspective. According to the New Economics Foundation, ‘investing in early years education is one of the highest returning, large-scale investments a government can make. It is an investment in human capital’ (2023). And this has been reflected in successive governments’ rationales for investing (through varying levels of enthusiasm and financial support) in the early years.
Therefore, in Feltham, prioritising the development of the Early Years workforce at the very start of the cradle-to-career pipeline felt like an obvious place for us to start.
In 2020, this led to a partnership between ourselves and Kingston University to co-deliver an Early Years Foundation Degree to early years professionals working in local settings in Feltham and the surrounding area. This was part of the work of the Feltham Early Learning Community, funded by Save the Children.
Katherine Richards-Bryant
Early Education Lead
Helen Francis
Early Years Associate Lecturer
Led by Early Education Lead Katherine Richards-Bryant and Helen Francis, the Early Years Foundation degree has involved early years professionals combining part-time study with work in local early years’ settings over two years.
Through weekly degree sessions during term time, the group has formed a community of practice, comprised of individuals who want to develop their careers and who have the interest and the passion to do this in the early years, as the video below demonstrates.
Prior to the degree being established in Feltham, Katherine spent time developing a network of professional peer support through the Feltham Early Years Network.
The Network provided high-quality early years professional development—free at the point of delivery—to local professionals while providing an opportunity to develop strong, cross-setting relationships. Many of the degree students attended this network and reference it as a key part of their career trajectory.
What are some of the key factors to the success of this work?
Reflections from those on the course highlight the following as key factors in their motivation and success:
Having work-based learning opportunities;
Sharing real-life experiences and scenarios during sessions, connected to the local community;
Curating degree content based on these experiences and scenarios;
Having the opportunity to apply theory to these scenarios and to share challenges and solutions;
Building strong professional relationships with their professional advocates and degree teachers;
Seeing children develop based on changes to their practice that have been informed by the degree;
Feeling valued as a professional in an area of work that is so often under-valued and under-estimated;
Feeling their self-confidence grow; and,
Gaining promotions at work due to their qualifications and experience.
What’s next?
Now in its fifth year, the Early Years Foundation Degree has contributed significantly to the development of the Early Years workforce in Feltham and the surrounding area. It is raising the profile of both the vital role that high-quality education plays in the development of babies and children aged 0-5, and the need for better professional development opportunities for those working in this field.
Our new national government has made it clear that investing in the Early Years is a key priority. Encouragingly, it has pledged to create over three thousand new nursery classes across England and to raise the profile of Early Years staff. By 2030, it has the ambition to see the number of children achieving the Early Years Goals increase by half a million.
These feel like positive steps, but with 57% of nursery and pre-school staff considering leaving the sector, there is significant work to be done to support—and retain—Early Years professionals.
Dawn’s story demonstrates that a good place to start is through partnership building between local anchor institutions and key training providers to deliver place-based professional development. These partnerships should focus on supporting passionate, motivated staff to develop their knowledge and skills, widen their professional network and train on the job in the place they feel most connected to.
Through this approach, within less than five years, people like Dawn are making a tangible positive change at an individual, organisational and local systemic level. Given the relatively short time a government has to implement reform, it feels like there is huge potential in taking note of Dawn’s advice and turning a crisis into a viable opportunity for change.
Thank you for reading. Over the course of the next academic year, we will be sharing examples of developing the Early Years workforce, including showcasing different case studies as well as reflections on what has (and hasn’t) worked. Please do get in touch with us if you would like to contribute to any of these pieces or share any feedback.
