Early Years Professional Status (EYPS)

Our staff are all experienced and well known in early years and children's services professional development circles. For example, Marion Dowling is our Programme Adviser. We benefit greatly from Marion's wisdom and inspirational approach to supporting early years practitioners. Marion has written many influential publications, and is Vice President of the British Association for Early Childhood Education and has been consultant to the DfES, OFSTED, the Audit Commission and many local authorities.

Gaining recognition through EYPS

EYPS recognises the importance of early childhood experience and the cruicial role of those who work with young children. The aim of EYPS is to develop excellent professionals who focus on best practice and improve the lives of young children and their families, now and in the future.

We know our candidates lead busy personal lives as well as having the responsibility for being leaders in their workplace. We have a supportive individualised approach and do our best to provide a flexible service that is inclusive and respects people's individuality and commitments.

All EYPS candidates receive specialist training materials and have the full support of their own, locally based tutor. Success is achieved through a mixture of groupwork, individual study and work-based learning. There are four fully-funded (free of charge) pathways to achieving EYPS (dependent upon your qualifications, experience and work pattern).

To apply you'll need:

• English and maths GCSEs at grades A* - C (or equivalent)
• an ordinary degree (in any subject) or a foundation degree in early childhood studies (for the long pathway)

Promoting and sustaining EYP networks

We continue to work with EYPs once they have gained their status and provide opportunities

• to become mentors, assessors and tutors of new candidates
• to attend EYP conferences (often with Marion Dowling as the keynote speaker)
• to take part in international study visits - most recently BPN EYPs visited Viborg in Denmark to study the forest schools approach and see its benefits to young children's learning and development and to society more widely
• to keep in touch with newsletters and e-forums

Partnerships with local authorities

We are pleased to work closely with local authorities on EYPS. We support their local EYP networks, through presentations and workshops. Some authorities have commissioned us to take responsibility for organising and leading their networks and we are currently working with one local authority's settings to support their action plans for increasing the number of EYPs in post over the next few years.

Registration form and further information

To find out more about the location of EYPS pathways available through Best Practice Network, please email eyps@bestpracticenet.co.uk. You may also find the following useful:

• EYPS Standards
• EYPS Candidate Information booklet
• EYPS qualifications guidance
• Frequently asked questions (general)
• Frequently asked questions (childminders)
• Case studies for validation pathway (childminder), short EPD pathway and full training pathway

Registered candidates can access training and support materials relevant to their pathway, including the templates required for completion of EYPS tasks by visiting www.bestpracticenet.info

The CWDC website will provide you with the background to the Status, answer frequently asked questions and give you an insight into their Early Years Strategy.