Early Years Initial Teacher Training: Investigating the Challenges Faced and Potential Impact of Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT) Trainees on Leading Practice in the Early Years During Their Training Programme

The Department for Education statistics on ‘Initial Teacher Training: training number census 2017-2018’ demonstrate that there have been fewer trainees enrolled on EYITT courses nationally (595 trainees, 25 fewer than last year). This has fallen short of the Government’s target of 2400 trainees, which is the third year that the numbers for EYITT programmes has fallen according to the census.

The University of Worcester currently delivers the Early Years Initial Teacher Training programme following a revision of the previous programme and its previous occurrences as Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) and Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS), with the inclusion of the Teachers’ Standards (Early Years) (2013).
The title of the research has developed following discussions with trainees currently on the programme, alumni and discussions held at the EYITT National Harmonisation meetings whereby trainees do not always feel valued as ‘Early Years Teachers’, with some settings and schools having misconceptions about the programme and the trainee.
I propose to research how we could manage misconceptions of the status of Early Years Teachers, drawing on the experience of mentors, current trainees and graduate Early Years Teachers and to explore the challenges faced and the potential impact our EYITT trainees have in leading practice in the early years.
This research has the potential to highlight the value of Early Years Teachers in practice and may be disseminated to a wider audience.
The workshop will outline the proposed research and discuss the potential challenges faced by Early Years Teachers and the impact that Early Years Teachers have in practice.