On this module, you'll examine the role of early years practitioners, considering the influences from local, national and international practice.

You'll reflect on your own work-based context and approaches to continual professional development, including a skills scan supporting assessment of current knowledge, skills and behaviours.

You'll explore relevant policy, statutory guidance, legal requirements and theory to analyse the role of practitioners in supporting the lives of children and their families and be challenged to consider ethical and rights-based approaches to supporting children, listening to their authentic voices within individual social and cultural contexts.

You will consider your career plans and options for lifelong learning by creating your own professional development plan, setting measurable goals that can interconnect with work-based supervisions, observed-assessed setting visits and strategies to enhance collaborative working in your chosen areas of specialism.

You'll explore theories of self-regulation, resilience and wellbeing and the impact of adverse early childhood experiences.

From diet and physical activity to how children develop social, emotional, behavioural and relationship skills, you'll consider the biological and environmental factors that influence attachment, lifelong wellness and personal care.

Using relevant case studies, you'll look at the impact of opportunities, resources and strategies to quickly support wellbeing and how dynamic, evolving and enabling environments can support a child's sense of self and interpersonal skills.

You'll develop your awareness of the legal requirements, statutory guidance and other non-statutory guidance on health and safety, and on security and confidentiality of information, including carrying out risk assessments and risk management in line with employer, local and national requirements, policies and procedures.

You'll study adaptive pedagogy and how to work with colleagues to identify efficient approaches to children’s learning and assessment, including taking responsibility for supporting the key person in articulating children's progress and planning future learning possibilities.

You will explore how individual children can be supported to learn and develop in relation to typical and atypical neurological, cognitive, social, emotional, behavioural, communication and physical development.

Assuming the role of the child's key person, you will observe, assess and plan to facilitate learning, including sustained shared thinking and speech, language and communication skills in imaginative and resourceful ways, creating documentation that will show the key stages in assessing children’s progress – including the progress check at age two years, the Reception Baseline Assessment and the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile.

Respecting and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion are essential principles for practice within children's education and care.

You'll explore current and relevant policy, statutory guidance and legal requirements (such as the Equality Act 2010) as well as themes of social justice, drawing on evidence-based practice from international contexts.

You'll examine the importance of building positive relationships to appreciate the social cultural contexts of children, parents, families and carers and analyse the need to avoid stereotypes (for example those based on race, culture or gender).

You will present plans for adaptive teaching, communicating with all children in ways that will be understood to support learning of diversity. This will include identifying delays in communication development, and helping children catch up with language development.

On this module, you'll explore how to competently action and carry out safeguarding procedures, in line with local and national approaches to child protection, through critical examination of a case study.

You'll consider the role and responsibilities of practitioners to support identification when a baby or child is in danger or at risk of abuse, as well as the procedures used to competently action and carry out safeguarding practices.

You'll learn how to confidently challenge and undertake a difficult conversation through an assessed professional debate, as well as how to maintain accurate and coherent records and reports for the purpose of sharing information, and ensure the security and confidentiality of data.

You'll critically appraise the challenges of staying up-to-date regarding statutory and non-statutory guidelines, including implementing Ofsted's whistleblowing policy. Throughout the module, localised concepts of safeguarding will inform the content, including extra-familial harm.

You'll examine current and contemporary theoretical perspectives and approaches to leadership, considering how to support others through a supportive team culture including responsibility of supporting development of the key person.

You'll debate the implementation of mentoring, coaching, training and formal supervision at all stages of a career, and consider ways to evaluate its impact through curriculum delivery or pedagogical leadership.

You'll analyse the importance of fostering a culture of mutual support and teamwork, promoting equality of opportunity and supporting confidential discussions of sensitive issues. You'll consider strategies to support differing levels of motivation and engage colleagues to develop their practice, establishing a positive culture of seeking feedback from others.

You'll examine the role of leaders to confidently identify and competently challenge issues, unpicking the strategies that support difficult conversations.

You will reflect on your own career leadership aspirations, identifying skills you wish to further develop, before considering the wider influence of social leadership to enhance the sustainability of the profession.  

You'll consider how to identify atypical development and concerns around SEND, as opposed to a delay in learning, gap in knowledge or difficult/withdrawn behaviour.

Using the current statutory and non-statutory regulations, you'll consider the principles of individual needs-based assessments for effective early intervention and appropriate strategies for supporting a baby or child with SEND.

Through the development of a portfolio, you will create and justify a range of plans that utilise appropriate strategies for responding to atypical needs and development of a baby or child, following a graduated approach.

You'll document planning cycles to enhance educational play provision for the child, stimulating creativity and curiosity across their enabling environment (indoors and outdoors) and show the deployment of staff and resources including the use of specialist aids and equipment, appropriate connections with a range of professionals and agencies and a final evaluation that considers the strategies to support effective inclusive practice.

You'll critically reflect on your foundation degree journey, revisiting debates about ethical practice, exploring colleagues’ feedback on your own professional behaviours and considering your future professional career.

You'll collate key artefacts, such as assessed work-place visits, witness statements, supervision comments, peer feedback on behaviours, Ofsted reports and the development of policies, to form the basis of your skills review and reflection on your own learning and evaluate your role and behaviours in practice. 

You'll identify an area of practice or personal interest to research further through the examination of recent research studies. 

You'll explore research methods and methodologies, supporting you to develop a critical understanding of the practical, ethical and theoretical issues that can be involved in undertaking research within the context of your professional practice and career trajectory.