Abstract:

The English educational workforce for very young children is subject to state control and regulation. It is expected that every worker in early year’s settings will be educated to level 3 (pre-university) with some workers functioning at graduate or post-graduate level. All levels of qualifications for workers with 0-5 year olds in the England require a period of work based training. This paper reports strategies developed by work based educators for meeting the needs of both the young children who are the primary focus of their work and those undertaking work based learning in the same settings. Working with both home based and centre based practitioners we have explored their discursive responses to serving the learning of both very young children and apprentice practitioners. We have characterised their responses as intertwined dialogues. The importance of intertwined dialogues focussed on the care and education of very young children will be explored and the contexts in which these dialogues are utilised will be identified. The recognition by the most skilled workers of the role of neuroscience in developing best practice will be discussed