Makaton-friendly communities are now being established in the UK, with the first springing up in 2018 in Romsey, Hampshire, where 30 organisations were trained in signing. Childminder Mel Negus wants Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire to follow suit. ‘I read that three towns have become Makaton-friendly,’ she says. ‘I thought we could be one of them. How wonderful it would be to be a town where all early years settings are [Makaton-friendly].’
Ms Negus, network cluster lead practitioner for Whittlesey and District Childminding Network, is taking the first step towards this ambition, using funding from Fenland and East Cambridgeshire Opportunity Area’s Early Years Improvement Fund. Childminders, nurseries, libraries and other community settings are working together to create interventions aimed at improving children’s communication, language and literacy skills.
One priority is improving communication, language and reading among disadvantaged children. At first glance, early years attainment seems strong in the area: in 2018, the proportion of children achieving expected levels in speaking, for example, was 76 per cent in East Cambridgeshire and Fenland combined, against a national average of 77 per cent. However, there are significant gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers.
‘The early years data doesn’t look too bad, but when you unpack it, you see a wide difference between the progress of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children,’ says Patricia Pritchard, chair of the Fenland & East Cambridgeshire Opportunity Area Partnership Board. ‘Also, when we talked to professionals in early years and schools, they said children are starting school without the communication skills they need to access the curriculum.’
The gap between disadvantaged and advantaged children achieving a good level of development at the end of the EYFS in 2018 was nearly 28 per cent in East Cambridgeshire, compared with just over 18 per cent nationally.
TRAINING PROGRAMMES
The Early Years Improvement Fund was launched to support early years providers to work together in clusters to run a workforce development plan, or to implement a communication, language and literacy improvement project. So far, 71 settings have received up to £10,000 from this pot.
‘One of the challenges was reaching the practitioners and knowing who they were,’ says Ms Pritchard. ‘The local authority’s early years advisers helped with that.’
Ms Negus says, ‘Our development officer told our childminding network about the funding at our AGM; Makaton has always been one of those things we have wanted to do. We all had children who could benefit.’
Sensory circuits
The funding has already paid for 23 practitioners to receive training on delivering sensory circuits – short routines of activities that promote alertness, multi-sensory processing and balance, and calmness. The childminding network was able to extend the offer to nursery and pre-school workers. Training in the ‘Talking Tennis’ approach, which encourages back-and-forth interactions between children and adults, will be extended to 24 practitioners, with Makaton taken up by 12 childminders.
The training is particularly valuable because the network is able to arrange it at a time and place to suit childminders. ‘As childminders you can get frustrated because things you might be interested in are during the day; also training never tends to be in our town because we are so close to Peterborough,’ says Ms Negus.
The network plans to offer a sensory circuit and Makaton-based intervention to support school readiness and improve co-ordination, attention and literacy development, especially in boys. Sessions will be delivered at the childminders’ weekly drop-in at first, and eventually in community venues such as libraries and leisure centres. ‘We are going to run a sensory circuit for children, and have stories and singing using Makaton,’ says Ms Negus.
The childminder network has also used the funding to purchase Makaton and sensory resources, including an iPad app that gives practitioners access to Makaton symbols that can be printed out, therapy balls, tunnels, stepping stones and hoops. ‘We are ordering the new stuff that we have always wanted but couldn’t get our hands on,’ says Ms Negus. ‘But it is the training that is key – you can share resources if you don’t have much money. My ultimate goal, which will give the whole project sustainability, is that I will become a Makaton tutor, and my ambition is all settings in Whittlesea will have someone who has gone through Makaton training.
‘I want people to understand that Makaton is not just about SEND, it is about all communication for all children. If young children can communicate and understand, they will be less frustrated, and if all children going into school have this basis of signing, hopefully we will improve school-readiness.’
Phonics
Flutterbies Childcare, in Benwick, has also benefited from the Early Years Improvement Fund. ‘We are working with the parish council and a group called Benwick in Bloom to create spaces that encourage the use of rich language,’ says manager Jenny Fell. ‘We are trying to create a couple of spaces like a wild nature garden, for example, and we are putting some literature together that parents can use on walks with their children, saying where they can go, what they can look for and getting them talking.’
Flutterbies is working with a childminder and school to develop a lending library based on phonics, and staff have taken part in Phonics for Success training – a programme delivered by Cambridgeshire County Council. It targets 21 schools with phonics level data below the national average at end of Key Stage 1. Feeder settings and childminders with funded children are also invited to participate.
The sessions support practitioners to develop good phonological awareness based on a series of building blocks, including hearing rhymes and alliteration, hearing sounds in words, using sound talk, developing vocabulary, accurate assessment, effective planning and reflective practice.
So far, 68 practitioners have taken part, from 29 PVIs, 13 childminder settings and 15 schools. ‘Nine practitioners have advanced to take on lead practitioner roles,’ says Ms Pritchard. ‘When we are talking about sustainability, it is important to identify those who will extend training to a further cohort.’
Recruitment grant
Early years settings across the UK are struggling to fill vacant posts, and the recruitment crisis is no different in East Cambridgeshire and Fenland. In fact, being in a rural area with poor transport links, Fenland settings find it particularly hard to recruit staff. To tackle this, the Opportunity Area has launched a Recruitment Incentives Grant, allowing early years settings and schools to apply for up to £10,000.
This funding can be spent on incentives for new practitioners such as continuous professional development, including Master’s courses, visits to other settings, driving lessons and childcare vouchers.
Given the recruitment crisis endemic in early years, one would be forgiven for thinking that settings are champing at the bit to access this funding. However, while 21 schools have put in successful bids and recruited 49 teachers, only one early years setting has done so. The issue seems to be a lack of awareness: a number of Fenland and East Cambridgeshire nurseries contacted by Nursery Worldsaid they did not know about the fund. Clarence House Day Nurseries, which runs a number of settings in the area, says: ‘We hadn’t heard about it but we are really interested in finding out more.’ Settings have until January 2020 to make a bid.
One of the Government’s last announcements before dissolving Parliament for the election was an £18 million funding boost for Opportunity Areas, allowing the programme to run until August 2021. However, sustainability is still key, with settings looking at how projects can be continued when funding is no longer there.
‘I was talking to a school which is developing a project called Talk Tigers, encouraging conversation,’ says Ms Pritchard. ‘The funding paid for adults to deliver the intervention, but now they know it works, the school can continue it with volunteers. Sustainability lies in upskilling more people in a voluntary capacity.’
Fenland and East Cambridgeshire Opportunity Area
Achievements
71 settings – 37 early years providers, 13 childminders and 21 schools – have used funding from the Early Years Improvement Fund to train their workforce to improve outcomes in communication, language and literacy.
68 practitioners from 29 PVIs, 15 schools and 13 childminder settings have received training through Phonics for Success. Nine have advanced their training to take on the role of area language lead. Training will be rolled out to a further cohort of practitioners.
Targets
By 2021, the percentage of children eligible for free school meals achieving at least the expected standard in the EYFS Early Learning Goals for both Reading and Speaking to exceed the national average.
