Today was the latest East & West Midlands Regional Early Years Network. Delegates were drawn from nearly all LAs in the area as well as organisations such as the regional Government Offices.

Of course policy-wise much remains unknown. Indeed, one of the phrases of the day, attributed to a colleague from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) was that we are currently in a “policy vacuum”. Despite this, it was amazing to hear quite how much is going on day to day, driving on with the real job supporting professionals and improving the quality of provision for  children and families.

One particularly inspiring session didn’t sound particularly exciting – the Graduate Leader Fund (GLF) and its impact. But despite being still early days, the session was fantastic. All sorts of quality developments were mentioned, with promising measures and outcomes showing that actually this money really is making a difference.

Here are just a few of the impacts noted by individual Local Authorities:

• More settings with EYPs improved their Ofsted ranking than settings without EYP leaders
• Graduate-led settings were more inspired by, and in turn reaping more benefits from, ECERS/ITERS
• Plaques celebrating EYP status in settings had led to parents asking questions around staff skills and qualifications, and therefore broadened the understanding of quality provision
• Funding support groups and networking for employers with EYPs has been seen to increase buy-in to the EYP programme, and ultimately to deliver quality improvement

So, a great session with a simple story:

EYPs really do matter and really do make a difference, and funding channelled to early years really does have an impact!