EYPS
I started my EYPS course with really very little idea at all what it was all about. All I knew was that it was going to be lots of hard work (!) and was about proving my leadership skills. I chose it as I'd done the DHC, got a diploma and got a degree and I wanted something which would challenge me more and also something which would give me job prospects once I leave Childminding.
So I thought it might be useful to others considering the course to tell you about my experience so far..... I'm not yet half way through the Short pathway. For me that's a 6 month course. I go into uni 8 times over the course of those 6 months - the parents have been wonderfully flexible about this but there is a £1000 bursary to cover replacement childcare if needed. Half way through there's a Gateway Review. This sounds scary but I'm assured it's actually good fun. It's a half day assessment at the university which has three parts. There's role play with an actor, to demonstrate what you'd do in a particular setting-relevant situation. There's a presentation to give. And there's an interview too. This isn't a pass or fail thing but it's to assess any gaps before the written tasks and the setting visit.
The written tasks are what I'm working on (slightly obsessively) at the moment. The idea of EYPS is that you evidence that you meet 39 standards. These are categorised in 6 sections: effective practice, knowledge and understanding, relationships with children, communicating and working in partnership with families and carers, teamwork and collaboration, and personal professional development. You build up evidence in a folder - this might be work you've done like planning, annotated photographs, sections from your Ofsted report...... There are also 6 written tasks where you write about different things you've done. For instance, you might write about how you changed how snack times worked during playgroup because of x, y and z reasons. And you put in the margin how this shows that you are meeting the standards.
The written tasks get sent to the assessor and she'll look at the folder come the setting visit. The assessor comes for a whole day to look at the folder, inspect the setting (that'll take about 2 minutes in my case ), speak to you and to three nominated witnesses. What my tutor hasn't been able to clear up is how this will work as a Childminder. I suppose they'll just have to be a bit flexible to take into account how we work alone so there's nobody to keep an eye on the children for us when we have our interview with them. I already said that if a child needs me at that stage then they'll just have to wait until I'm free
Finally, we've all been assigned a mentor who has achieved EYPS themself. Mine is another Childminder so she'll be able to be a huge help because she's been there and done that.
So far, it's going okay. I've had mixed feelings about it but I think that if I use the support available and work really really hard it will be achievable, with a lot of organisation. It's already impacting on what I do and how I think about my work, both as an individual and working with others, in positive ways: being more organised, thinking more about how to involve the parents. I'm even going to give a training session of my own .
The one thing that I have noticed which has cause me some concern is that even though the CWDC assess everything, regardless of which university you study through, so everyone should have the same information, that even between the tutors delivering my course there is different information being given about what can or cannot go into the evidence folder. I was lookimg on the EYPS forum last night and again there is one person saying their tutor said x and another saying their tutor said y. But apparently the keyword is triangulation - the assessors want to see three ways that you meet a standard. In what you say at the setting visit, from your witnesses, and in written form through the tasks and folder of evidence.
Hopefully this will have some benefit if you're thinking about going into it so you're a lot more prepared than I was!
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children Mark Twain
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