Alliance offers members training in lieu of local authority support
Janaki Mahadevan
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Pre-school Learning Alliance is to expand a programme of training to all its members in response to dwindling local authority support for professional development.
The membership organisation has decided to offer the free training to its 14,000 members after striking a deal with training provider EduCare.
Members will be able to undertake the free distance learning from May, which includes courses in child protection, children’s rights and budgeting. The training will also cover topics such as the requirements of the revised Early Years Foundation Stage and managing Ofsted inspections.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the alliance, said: "At a time when budgets are tight and local authority funding for training is being withdrawn, we are delighted to announce that from May all alliance members will be able to access free training for their entire staff teams.
"With the decline in the availability of traditional classroom-based training and the rising cost of releasing staff to go on training courses, these programmes provide a high-quality, cost effective and accessible route to train all staff on the topics that matter to the early years sector."
All setting managers and their staff and volunteers will be able to access the support online from May.
A membership survey published by the National Day Nurseries Association in December found that 34 per cent of settings said their local authority was either "not very supportive" or "not supportive at all" compared to 19 per cent in the previous year’s survey.
