On the front line

If you’re looking for inspiration, the workshops at this year’s Children’s Centre and Extended School Show promise to provide plenty. To make it easier to identify which sessions are most relevant to
visitors, the schedule is divided into five zones: work, sustainability, community, partnership and wellbeing in
action.
The Work Zone is the place to go to hear about issues such as recruiting the best staff, leading multi-agency working, the lowdown on pay and how to get a job in the sector. SkillsActive, for instance, is running a workshop on the latest moves to professionalise the play workforce. As the sector skills council representing people who work in the play sector, it is determined to maintain the momentum for better recognition of the contribution these workers make to childcare.
Paul Bonel, head of the playwork sector at SkillsActive, says: “Play didn’t get the recognition it deserved in the Children’s Workforce Strategy because much more prominence was given to subjects such as early years and foster care. But, in the Children’s Plan, it got much, much more recognition.
There’s much more interest in improving the skills of the workforce and raising the status of the playwork
professional. For the first time, we’ve really got government backing for play and playwork as part of the wider children’s workforce.”
SkillsActive predicts that this newfound status will have a positive impact on the number of people that want to enter a career in playwork and will be talking about its plans to support the growing workforce.
Another topical subject relating to the growing professionalisation of the childcare sector, which is also covered in the Work Zone workshop programme, is the Early Years Foundation Stage. This comes into force in September and qualifications provider Cache will be on hand to advise workshop attendees about what they need to do to make sure they are ready for the new curriculum.
Play also features prominently in the Community Zone, where Play England is running a workshop called “It’s good
to play: Make sure you’re using play to create child-friendly communities”.
This session is being led by Lisa Davis, policy officer at Play England, who says it has been planned with extended schools co-ordinators and children’s centre managers in mind.
“The idea is to look at the importance of play in extended services and give attendees practical tips. We will also be looking at the policy that relates to play and where our ideas fit in this context,” she says. For example, she will be talking in detail about the changes outlined in the new government policy Fair Play, which was announced on 3 April, and is out for consultation.
The Pre-school Learning Alliance is also running a workshop in this zone.
Lynda Sandham, divisional director at the alliance, will be spearheading the session and says that it aims to “explore the opportunities and challenges facing children’s centres as they work within diverse and changing communities”.
She asks: “If it takes a community to raise a child, are the changes happening within communities likely to make that statement a possibility?”
The workshop will pose and strive to answer a range of other questions: What are the challenges children and families face? How can your centre support the development of community cohesion? If the pace of change in society is increasing, how should your centre respond?
As well as facilitating a group discussion where people can share what has worked in their centres, Sandham also intends to draw on the Pre-school Learning Alliance’s experience of working with a range of community
groups when advising delegates. In addition to this more general session,
there will be specific workshops on reaching out to immigrants and safeguarding children. Charity Home-Start will also lead a session on family outreach with tips on reaching families most in need.
The Sustainability Zone is where you can find valuable information on all things financial, from making your centre work as a business, to discovering what funding is available, to tips on good governance. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is running a session on how to consult parents and children as you develop your services. Fiona Walker, principal officer at the NFER, will be leading the workshop and explains that: “We’re not going to be talking in detail about our research, because we want listeners to be able to take something
practical away with them. So we’ll give an overview of different ways to carry out research, which will be a good mix of theoretical and practical.”
Walker adds that ensuring children’s voices are heard is critical, as underlined in Every Child Matters. The
NFER has devised several different successful methods to do this. For example, one of the most popular with children is the “audience response systems”.
“We call them Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? keypads because they’re a fun and easy way for kids to cast their votes. They can be used with young kids from 18 months and are also very good for sensitive children who don’t want to speak,” says Walker.
Of course, the workshop programme would not be complete without a few sessions on the perennially topical subject of partnerships and inter-agency working. The Partnership Zone is definitely the zone to head to if you want to get the inside track on working with parents, head teachers, disabled children and their carers. It’s also the place to head to make sure you’re meeting your new duties under the Childcare Act 2006. This includes section 12 of the Act on making information available to parents, which Opportunity Links will run a session on.
Delivering services to disabled children will also be a key topic in the Partnership Zone. I Can is running a workshop on children with speech, language and communication difficulties.
Melanie Cross, the charity’s expert adviser, will lead this interactive session, which will be full of practical hints and tips on subjects such as developing an understanding of communication difficulties and simple strategies that can enable language development.
Complementing this, Steve Broach, campaign manager of Every Disabled Child Matters, will lead a workshop on
delivering Aiming High for Disabled Children, the government’s transformation programme for disabled
children’s services. He stresses that neither of these workshops should be considered as niche. “They are for the mainstream audience. Disabled children are the new priority group for the government,” says Broach.