After training on the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) programme in 2015-16, for which she achieved an outstanding grade, Katie Walmsley used her passion for her new role in the sector to help children at newly purchased Greenview Nursery make the best possible progress.
As joint owner of Greenview, Katie’s passion for early years, along with her natural ability to lead a team, model effective practice and implement radical changes to support children’s progress, became apparent within her first term.
Her robust assessment model enabled her to see the impact that she was having on the children’s learning, and she disseminated this quickly and effectively to staff in limited time to take the nursery from being initially evaluated as ‘requiring improvement’ to receiving an Outstanding rating within its post-registration period.
Katie is a strong believer in the holistic nature of the role of early years teacher, and the importance of creating a joined-up approach between key persons, parents and professionals to improve outcomes for all children. She emphasises that the child’s journey starts with the strongest baseline assessment in which parents are involved from the beginning. This is reviewed at every opportunity and inclusive progress check meetings with health visitors enable prompt intervention if needed.
Katie has drawn on her previous experience working in Key Stage 1 to revamp the nursery approach to behaviour management. Rather than reactive and punitive approaches such as the traffic light system, Katie opted for the more proactive and positive ‘superstars’. She also advocates placing children in charge of their own learning through self-selection of activities, and involves children in decision-making, such as encouraging them to carry out daily risk assessments outdoors, wearing high-visibility jackets and hard hats.
Katie fully understands the danger of gaps between more vulnerable children and their peers arising during terms, and has developed approaches to help combat this such as homework boxes for funded term-time children to help parents support their children at home.
In order to support parents on key skills such as phonics and maths, Katie has introduced parent workshops. She uses school passports to encourage parents to recognise key skills for transition to school. Furthermore, Katie has produced parent home bags with pictorial representations to support illiterate families or those with English as an additional language. She has also set up a parent zone on the nursery website and introduced handbooks and termly forums for families.
She supports her whole staff team through mentoring and has identified each staff member’s learning style to ensure their professional development is tailored to best support them. Katie has also introduced environment audits and room and peer observations. She has taken her extensive knowledge of child development, safeguarding, attachment, health and well-being and anti-discriminatory practice to develop a 15-module staff induction process, consisting of a series of shadowing, observations, quizzes and online training.
Katie acquired Little Sparks Nursery in July 2016 and invested the same passion and commitment into the setting, which received an Outstanding rating at inspection after just six months.
Patricia Burgess, programme lead for EYTS at Edge Hill University, where Katie studied, says, ‘She is utterly committed to the sector and continually strives to deepen her knowledge and understanding of child development, which she disseminates to colleagues.
‘She is passionate about her job and this is infectious. She is hard-working, dedicated and an inspiration.’
Finalist
Alexandra Chiorando, Elmscot Group, Timperley
Criterion
Nominees must have gained Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) or Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) through one of the recognised pathways
