The aim of the leadership support and mentoring programme, previously announced by the Department for Education (DfE), is to strengthen teaching and address the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on young children.
Practitioners with a Level 6 (degree) qualification or higher, currently working in a school, nursery school or other early years setting rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, and who have at least three years’ experience working in childcare are invited to apply for the roles, which will involve providing bespoke support to settings face-to-face and virtually.
Mentors are required to have experience of leadership or supervision of others, while experts and area leads must be currently working in a leadership role within a setting.
Under the programme, which is initially being piloted in Lancashire and West Yorkshire and the North of England before being rolled out nationally the next academic year (2022/23), eligible early years settings will be able to request the support of an early years expert and mentor in their region to deliver whole-setting support, coaching and leadership support and mentoring for practitioners.
What the roles entail
The role of a mentor will be to work with their mentee to identify which areas of child development and practice they require support with, with a focus on supporting children to recover from the pandemic, including narrowing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.
Experts will provide three days support to the setting leader. The expert and setting leader between them will decide the type of activities the expert undertakes in the setting.
The role of the area lead will be to act as a first point of contact to around 10 mentors and/or experts.
The DfE is providing funding of up to £400 a day for a mentor, £500 a day for an expert and £600 a day for an area lead. The funding includes travel and subsistence costs.
For the pilot programme, the DfE will be procuring a training partner who will train experts, mentors and area leads, and a delivery partner who will be responsible for matching them up with settings.
More information on the national programme and support for childminders will be announced in ‘due course’.
Those interested in taking on one of the roles, need to submit an expression of interest by Friday 3 December. If successful, they must be available to start supporting settings from April 2022.
- For More information click here for:
- Mentor
- Early Years Expert
- Area Lead
