At North Hertfordshire College, we continue create ways we can help our learners build the skills, confidence, and experience for success. Our new T Level programmes, which have been designed with input from employers to incorporate essential industry knowledge, offer an exciting opportunity for our Level 3 learners to build their understanding – but what does the course actually involve?
We’ve gone behind-the-scenes of our new Level 3 T Level in Childcare: Early Years Education (EYE) course to give you an exclusive preview of what happens in our classrooms. From creating classroom displays to hands-on practice handling babies using dummies, our learners have enthusiastically taken on several challenges and activities in their new course. Check out some of their highlights from the first few weeks of study:
Hands-on teaching experience 🍎
Talk about hitting the ground running – within only a few weeks of their first day, our T Level students got stuck in with a microteach session to their fellow classmates. Thanks to a free rein on the choice of topics (provided their class met the criteria provided they met the assessment criteria), the sessions covered topics ranging from how to draw an eye, how to play Uno, and how to write a nursery rhyme.
Vickie Sharp, Course Team Lead and one of our amazing Child Development Studies tutors, told us: “I’m incredibly proud of the group’s work. I threw them in at the deep end as new T Level students but the confidence the group demonstrated in speaking and delivering to each other, and us, was amazing. You totally smashed it, T Level EYEs – well done!”
Extra qualifications to prepare for work 🏆
As part of the T Level in Childcare: Early Years Educator programme, learners study topics surrounding safeguarding, health and safety, and wellbeing. This helps them understand all the ways that children can be supported in childcare settings to ensure their safety both in the setting and in their personal life. To help prepare our own learners to understand the topic as a whole, all of our EYE T Level learners completed their Introductory Prevent Duty training, designed for education professionals. We’re happy to report that all our learners passed and now have the certificates to add to their professional portfolio and CVs!
Identifying useful skills 🔎
Our T Level learners have already taken part in several sessions which explore the skills needed for success in the childcare sector. One particularly engaging lesson saw them take on hula hoop challenges and a real-life game of ‘spot the difference’ before relating the activities to professional skills and behaviours. The learners decided communication, resilience, and patience played a key part in all the games, as well as team working. They were also able to link the observation skills needed to notice the changes in spot the difference to the observation, assessment, and planning cycle of the Early Years Foundation Stages (EYFS) framework.
Cookery Session in Nutrition Suite 🍰
Using the children’s books The Little Red Hen and Rosie’s Walk as a starting point, our T Level and Level 3 students explored opportunities to extend young children’s learning. They discussed different teaching points introduced in the books, such as where different types of food come from, and the social development aspect of sharing and turn-taking that feature in the books. They then enjoyed an example lesson that could be used to teach young children, combining the content of the books with a fun activity – baking muffins!
They even embedded their maths skills by working out the nutritional values of one muffin, keeping their skills sharp.
With all these sessions, our T Level students are working on adapting their skills and translating their learning to industry examples to establish a deeper of the Early Years Foundation Stages (EYFS) framework.
What an amazing set of activities and a busy first half-term for our T Level Early Years Educator students! We look forward to seeing what else they achieve over the rest of the academic year.
If you’re interested in starting your own T Level journey, check out NHC’s dedicated T Levels page to see the full range of courses we offer. With NHC, you can stay close to home and build the key skills and experience to go far in your future career!