TEY-10.2

WELCOME BACK MELANIE PILCHER IS THE EARLY YEARS ALLIANCE’S QUALITY AND STANDARDS MANAGER Early Years practitioners must carefully tune in to the lock- down experience of each individual child says Melanie Pilcher looking forward Teachearlyyears.com 29 I f we were to reflect on the last six-months it would be very difficult to make any generalisations about the early years sector. Some settings remained open throughout the coronavirus lockdown period to provide care for vulnerable children and the children of essential workers. Other settings closed their doors, not knowing when (or if) they would be able to reopen. Those that remained open were in many cases doing so for only a handful of children. From June onwards, as restrictions were gradually lifted, more children were able to return to their early years setting and providers had to juggle staff availability against demand for places and the financial viability of offering a limited service. By mid- July just 61 per cent of Ofsted registered early years providers were open, 31 per cent remained closed and the status of the rest was unknown. Now, after months of restrictions and challenges that have tested early years providers to their limits, most children are expected to return to their schools and early years provision as we take another big step toward a more normal service. Despite the uncertainty of recent months there are some things that we do know for sure. The children that many practitioners said goodbye to in March this year will not be the same children who have gradually returned to them after such a long absence. Yes, they will have grown and they will have moved on in their learning and development. But most importantly they will each have had a unique experience of lock-down that may have a long-term, if not immediately obvious, impact. This means that early years practitioners must carefully tune in to the lockdown experience of each individual child so that they can respond appropriately to their needs. We also know that far too many vulnerable children who were entitled to a priority place during lock-down did not take it up. This is concerning because these are the children who during normal attendance at their setting would have been monitored and any deterioration in their circumstances would have been followed-up. In many cases other services involved with the child and family will have maintained contact, but there are also children for whom practitioners had low-level concerns, whose circumstances may have worsened during lock-down. These are the children who may have been on the edge of needing support. Practitioners will need to be alert to any deterioration in their circumstances and should take appropriate action to secure further support immediately. We must be particularly alert to these children as they return to the setting, as they are the ones whose needs may have changed, but nobody else has noticed yet.