Apprenticeships Standards

What is an Apprenticeship Standard, and what does it involve?

A career in Childcare can be challenging but extremely rewarding. You will be helping a child to learn, develop and gain essential life skills. In this job role, you must be caring, wanting to work with children, be patient, adapt your communication and be aware that verbal and nonverbal communication is essential. In this job role as a childcare practitioner, you will have to communicate with children, their parents, other staff and other professionals.

An Apprenticeship is a combination of learning on the job, as well as off the job training where you will obtain a wealth of experience and an accredited qualification.

Once you gain your Apprenticeship, and you have signed up to Crackerjack Training, you will be allocated an assessor and a childcare tutor.

You will receive a timetable of your childcare teaching sessions, including maths and English if applicable.
Crackerjack Training offer a blended learning approached of face to face teaching and Zoom sessions.
You will have deadlines to meet, as to when to submit your assignments.

When you have met your assessor, they will visit you in the workplace and observe your practical vocational skills across a range of knowledge, skills and behaviours.
Together with your observations and assignments you will complete a portfolio.

End Point Assessment.

End Point Assessment (EPA) happens at the end of your Apprenticeship, and this is to ensure that you can do the job you have been training to do.
The end point assessment is split into 3 components:

• Observation
• Professional discussion which underpins the topics you have covered and submitted for your portfolio.
• A knowledge test.

Your professional discussion and observation will be conducted by an End Point Assessor from Pearson (our Awarding body).
You will receive mock tests and mock discussions to help you prepare for your EPA.

Once this has been passed you will have successfully completed your Apprenticeship.

Early Years Practitioner

An Early Years Practitioner (EYP) works and interacts directly with children on a day to day basis supporting the planning of and delivery of activities, purposeful play opportunities and educational programmes within the ethos of the setting. An EYP works as part of a professional team ensuring the welfare and care for children under the guidance and supervision of an Early Years Educator, teacher or other suitably qualified professional the Early Years Workforce.

In their daily work, an EYP also interacts with parents, children, colleagues and wider multi agency professionals and partners such as health visitors, social workers and speech and language therapists.

As an Early Years Practitioner, you will be responsible for:

• Supporting child initiated and adult led activities based around the needs and interests of each individual child.
• Supporting children’s learning through planned, purposeful play opportunities and educational programmes and working as part of a team to ensure each child feels safe and secure.
• Supporting the observation and assessment of each child and contribute to their learning experiences and assist with the care needs of the individual child such as teeth, skin, hair, feeding, changing nappies and toileting under direction of a more senior member of the team.
• Working in partnerships with other colleagues, parents and/or carers or other professionals, with support from a more senior member of the team, to meet the individual needs of each child.
• Ensuring that they recognise when a child is in danger and/or at risk of serious harm or abuse and contributing to the health and safety of the children, staff and others on the premises.

Mandatory Requirements

In order to meet the apprenticeship standards apprentices must achieve:

• Apprentices must successfully complete a Level 2 Early Years Practitioner (EYP) qualification.
• Apprentices without Level 1 English and maths will need to achieve this level and apprentices without Level 2 English and maths will need to take the tests for this level prior to taking the end-point assessment. For those with an education, health and care plan or a legacy statement, the apprenticeship’s English and maths minimum requirement is Entry Level 3. A British Sign Language (BSL) qualification is an alternative to the English qualification for those whose primary language is BSL.

Destinations:

At the end of this qualification, you can progress on to:

Early Years Educator Apprenticeship
Nursery Practitioner Assistant
Early Years Practitioner (Level 3) Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship Standards – Early Years Educator

As an Early Years Educator, or similar role such as nursery nurse or childminder, you will work as a highly trained professional, who play a key role in ensuring that young children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. You will be working in a range of settings, including full day-care, children’s centres, pre-schools, reception classes and as childminders, either on your own or supervising others to deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) requirements set by Government for the learning, development and care of children from birth to five years old.

As an Early Years Educator, you will:

• Plan and supervise child-initiated and adult-led activities, which are based around the needs and interests of each individual child
• Support children to develop numeracy and language skills through games and play
• Take key-person responsibility to help ensure each child feels safe and secure
• Observe each child and shape their learning experience to reflect their observations
• Meet the care needs of the individual child, such as feeding, changing nappies and administration of medicine
• Work in partnership with other colleagues, parents and/or carers or other professionals to meet the individual needs of each child

Apprentices must successfully complete a Level 3 Early Years Educator qualification.

Apprentices without Level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this level prior to taking their end-point assessment. For those with an education, health and care plan or a legacy statement, the apprenticeships English and maths minimum requirements are Entry Level 3, and the British Sign Language qualification is an alternative to English qualifications for apprentices for whom this is their primary language.

Apprentices must successfully complete the Level 3 Award in Paediatric First Aid (RQF) or Level 3 Award in Emergency Paediatric First Aid (RQF) to meet the EYFS requirements.

Destination on completion of this Apprenticeship

At the end of this qualification you can go on to:

• Be fully qualified Early Years Educator practitioner: with experience you can also progress on to management
• Progress on to Higher Educator
• Become a Childminder

And many more.