We are dedicated to supporting the sector by championing careers in the early years, made possible by our talented team of tutors at our Training Academy.

The Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers celebrates England’s outstanding apprenticeship employers, recognising their commitment to creating new apprenticeships, the diversity of their apprentices, and the number of apprentices who successfully achieve their apprenticeships.

Gill Mason, Head of Training and Development at Kids Planet, said

“We are delighted to be recognised in the top 100 employers of apprenticeships again this year

At Kids Planet we recognise the transformative impact apprentices can have in the early years sector from entry level to senior management, from new recruits and existing colleagues – they are an imperative component of a strong, skilled and diverse early years workforce.

Continued development of apprentices will ensure the long-term success of the early years sector for future generations.”

Gillian Keegan, Secretary of State for Education, said:

“I want to congratulate and thank all the businesses that made the 2023 rankings. Apprenticeships are a fantastic way for people of all ages and background to earn while they learn, whilst ensuring employers develop the pipeline of skilled professionals they need to grow and thrive.

These rankings highlight the huge range of apprenticeship opportunities right across the country, from renewable energy projects, to video game design, and marine navigation.

As a degree apprentice myself, I am passionate about ensuring more people can access the same opportunity I did – and I’m delighted that our 2023 rankings help us showcase the best of the best in apprenticeships.”

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The collaborative project’s focus is on how best to prepare learners/apprentices for End Point Assessment and is working in partnership with Seren Skills Network, College But Different and Professional Apprenticeships.

The Project

This project is about the skill development needed to ensure that End Point Assessments (EPA) are successful first-time round, and that apprentices are fully prepared to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Kids Planet Academy will be delivering the project over the next six months, carrying out primary research (such as observations, interviews and surveys) with tutors, learners and a special focus on employer involvement in EPA.

The team will then be analysing the information to spot trends and patterns. All of the findings will be shared on the ETF website and we will produce some handy guides for learners, employers and tutors.

The project has two strands. The first is gaining an understanding of how to best prepare learners for EPA throughout the length of their programme and what strategies tutors, learners and employers find the most effective.

The second is around the most effective assessment and feedback methods that can be used to embed and develop these skills throughout the course, and how feedback and feedforward are used.

Gill Mason, Head of Training and Development at Kids Planet:

“We are extremely proud to have been awarded this project bid as the only group of Independent Training Providers. We want this project to look through the lens of the learner in order to construct the best possible approaches to End Point Assessment. This project aims to highlight best practice in the sector and improve outcomes for apprentices.”

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“Apprenticeships are an excellent route into employment and bring a wealth of talent to Kids planet Day Nurseries and our external nursery clients’ settings”, said Gill Mason, Head of the Kids Planet Training Academy.

We’re proud to partner with a range of organisations across the UK. In fact, we were even ranked 21st in the UK’s Top 100 Apprentice providers in 2022.

At Kids Planet, we pride ourselves on giving learners the opportunities to develop a career in Early Years, with ongoing professional development and clear training opportunities, helping them to feel empowered and appreciated by a company they trust.

Experts in our sector

Part of our uniqueness is that as a training provider, we want to keep the emphasis on early years as a whole. We don’t just train Kids Planet team members, we also work with a number of external partners because we want them to benefit from our sector expertise too.

We know what challenges other providers face because we face them ourselves so it’s coming together as a group to tackle those as a collective which is important to us. As a training academy and an employer, we really do champion the sector.

We want to change quality for the better, and push for more recognition for early years education as a fantastic career. Sometimes early years education doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as a career, so we really want to position early years as a profession, a career and something you can have a trajectory on.

The training academy offers a diverse range of qualifications to help everybody develop and flourish. Find out what we offer:

Apprenticeships

If you’re interested in working with younger children, an apprenticeship in Early Years with Kids Planet Training Academy can be the perfect route into your chosen career. You can enrol onto the following courses:

Level 2 Early Years Practitioner
Level 3 Early Years Educator
Level 3 Team Leader or Supervisor
Level 3 Early Years SENCo
Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner
Level 5 Operations or Departmental Manager
Level 7 Apprenticeship Senior Leader

Leaderships

Our Leadership programme has been created for those working in a management role or being moved into a role in which management and leadership skills are essential.

Currently, qualifications cover team leader/supervisor roles as well as middle and high-level management positions at Levels 3, 4 and 5 Leadership and Management.

Apprentices for all ages

Did you know, the average age for an apprentice is 29?

Despite the majority of the UK workforce wrongly believing they are ‘too old’ to become an apprentice, there is actually no apprenticeship age limit, and sadly the perceived age barrier in apprenticeships can cause missed opportunities.

Apprenticeships are often cited as being a great career path and alternative to university for young people, however, there are also many ways apprentices can benefit older people in their careers – from upskilling to restarting in a completely new field.

For more information or to apply to learn with Kids Planet, please enquire today or apply online.

The post Did you know, Kids Planet trains external partners too? appeared first on Kids Planet Academy.

Now in full swing, delivery started in November and the Academy is now on its 6th cohort with over 250 learners so far.

The programme was launched to support up to 5,000 early years SENCos, and build specialist expertise in SEND by increasing the number of Level 3 qualified SENCos in group-based and childminder settings.

Gill Mason, Head of Training and Development, said:

“I’m delighted with the high level of interest and uptake in the Early Years SENCO training offer. Having more qualified SENCOs in Kids Planet Day Nurseries and beyond will have positive impacts on children with SEND and across the early years sector.

We are passionate about qualifications making a difference to practice and are committed to ensuring all children have the best possible start in life by ensuring early years educators have the opportunity to undertake high quality pertinent qualifications. The SENCO Level 3 training is a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of furthering knowledge in this area.”

Eligibility

To undertake the Level 3 Early Years SENCO qualification, you need to be an Early Years SENCO, or due to take up the role of Early Years SENCO, with an existing Level 3 qualification and the support of an appropriate setting, like private, voluntary or independent Early Years settings, Ofsted-registered childminders and childminder agencies.

Course details

The qualification has been designed to meet the requirements of the EYFS Framework and provide Early Years SENCOs and aspiring Early Years SENCOs with the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to perform the role effectively.

The Level 3 Early Years SENCO qualification is delivered over 4 months through Online Taught Sessions and Online Study Units.

They consist of live tutor-led training, incorporating pre-reading tasks, breakout room activities, group discussion and group training, covering the roles and responsibilities of the Special Educational Needs Coordinator, and strategies and techniques for supporting children and families.

Further details about the programme are available at https://www.bestpracticenet.co.uk/early-years-SENCO

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There’s a pertinent saying that many employers live by- that a company is only as good as its people- and these apt words are certainly at the heart of Kids Planet. The family-owned, award-winning group now has over 100 nurseries across the UK, and this expansion can be attributed in part to their comprehension of that simple philosophy: to invest in your team’s future is to invest in your company’s future too.

Recruitment and staff retention is a hot-button issue that can plague many early years education providers, as there is still a stigma attached to career progression and longevity in the sector. To Kids Planet however, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and they have always strived to tackle this unfair stereotype head on, and offer people the opportunity to build a truly rewarding career in childcare.

Since 2008, when their first nurseries opened in Warrington and Widnes, they have always recognised that critical to success is the quality of staff that are employed, the skills that they develop and their shared ethos and vision. After a decade of expansion, gaining knowledge and opening new nurseries across the UK, they were able to put their extensive experience into opening their Kids Planet Training Academy in 2018, to further this commitment to quality early years education.

Early years education should be considered as a profession, with career progression

Gill Mason, Head of Training and Development at Kids Planet Training Academy explained that one driving force behind opening their own training centre was to solidify their expertise into cohesive programmes, so that employees could see clear career progression, and that their ongoing training would be consistent and high quality.

“Our ambition was to create an academy that if people were to think about early years education, they’d immediately think of Kids Planet. From 14–15-year-old wanting early years work experience to apprentices then up to senior management, we want people to come on their whole career journey with us,” she said.

“What we envisaged was a model where the employer is also the trainer- what we’ve experienced before, especially as Kids Planet is nationally based, was that nurseries could have 12 different training providers delivering apprenticeships with different approaches, so the quality and experience across different sites was very varied, and sporadic.”

Because of the huge variety of training providers and the coordination involved in sorting out various qualifications across the multiple sites, Kids Planet felt as though a clearer path was needed, which became a cornerstone of the training academy’s mission statement.

“Companies have different ways of delivering training and what we wanted was a standardised approach. Our vision was to create quality, consistent training programmes for our team members so they could get the best learner journey possible,” Gill explained.

“It doesn’t matter where they are, or where they’re based, the environment should nurture training and development, and the experience should be the same.”

In 2020, the Kids Planet Training Academy moved to Knutsford, Cheshire

In 2018, the Kids Planet Training Academy first opened in Lymm Head office then later in Knutsford, Cheshire. Once the headquarters were set up in Knutsford- with satellite centres across the North West- Kids Planet have been able to put their vision into practice by providing a rich variety of learning opportunities and qualifications for people at every stage of their career. This includes traineeships for those just starting out, apprenticeships for those in full or part-time roles, and leadership programmes for those looking for further professional development, as well as teaching and assessing qualifications, higher level qualifications and sector specific awards.

From their 26 week traineeship which provides a quality work placement in one of their settings and accredited training such as paediatric first aid and safeguarding, to middle and high-level management positions at Levels 3, 4 and 5 Leadership and Management, the diverse range of choice means there’s something to help everybody develop and flourish.

This also includes those who are employed by Kids Planet but are not necessarily directly linked to the childcare roles; Kids Planet’s dedicated Chef Academy helps to train the Kids Planet chefs towards providing only the healthiest and most nutritious food to the children in their care.

“Some people might really want to enhance their practice pedagogical, early years point of view, and some might want to enhance their practice from a leadership perspective- so your progression can be based on which direction you want your journey to take,” Gill said.

“We want people to see their journey ahead of them when they start, so that recruitment and retention of staff works for everybody. When we bring people on, we want to keep them.”

Team members can have a clear career progression path mapped out

Whichever qualification team members want to pursue, the training academy strives to provide the best learning environment possible; one of support and education, with a particular focus on the wellbeing of those undertaking training. The training academy also wants to enable employees to have a clear career progression mapped out for them, so they can know what to strive for, and how they can continue to better themselves.

Kids Planet have found that blending practical and academic methods of learning have proven to be effective. By both bringing people together in cohorts in their area so they can work together, and having onsite visits to see skills being applied to a workplace, people can not only learn from their tutor, but also socialise with like-minded people and share experiences.

Gill said: “It’s crucial for people to learn from each other, so that perhaps they can aspire to be like other people in the team, and have a camaraderie with each other, to lift each other up.

“We do a lot around wellbeing to ensure- particularly post-Covid when some of our younger learners felt isolated- to bring people together for that support. We have a wellbeing pack and handbook, as well as lots of other resources available for them to really feel like a cohesive group.”

Not only do Kids Planet offer this opportunity to their own team members, but they have also extended their remit to external organisations too, including nursery providers Kids Zone, to help spread their years of experience and knowledge to other early years educators, to improve the quality of childcare across the UK as a whole. According to Gill, this sharing of resources is vital to ensure that the quality of early years provision is ‘constantly improving’, which would help a career in childcare be considered all the more important, and a viable- and professional- career path.

The training academy offers a diverse range of qualifications to help everybody develop and flourish

“Part of our uniqueness is that as a training provider, we want to keep the emphasis on early years as a whole. We don’t just train Kids Planet team members, we also work with a number of external partners because we want them to benefit from our sector expertise too,” she added.

“We are trying to expand that as we’d like to become the voice of the sector. We know what challenges other providers face because we face them ourselves so it’s coming together as a group to tackle those as a collective which is important to us. As a training academy and an employer, we really do champion the sector.

“We want to change quality for the better, and push for more recognition for early years education as a fantastic career. Sometimes early years education doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as a career, so we really want to posit early years as a profession, a career and something you can have a trajectory on.”

For more information or to apply to learn with Kids Planet, please enquire today or apply online.

The post Training Academy striving to improve early years education appeared first on Kids Planet Academy.

This is a fantastic achievement and recognition for our Apprenticeship Scheme of the Year.

We are committed to building futures in a welcoming and supportive learning environment. All learners feel valued and challenged to be active learners, developing transferable skills through an accessible high-quality education and training programme.

Our curriculum reflects local and national priorities, meeting the skills needs of the early years sector by offering training and progression opportunities for sustained careers. Find out more about an apprenticeship with Kids Planet Training Academy.

See the full list of finalists here: https://nmt-magazine.co.uk/national-nursery-awards/finalists-2022/

National Nursery Awards 2022

The National NMT Nursery Awards has celebrated and recognised the achievements of the nursery sector for 20 years and will continue to do so now more than ever.

Hosted at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London, the National NMT Nursery Awards gathers over 700 key industry contacts to network with colleagues and celebrate the well-deserved winners, who are selected by an illustrious panel of judges.

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