Online Early Years Child Development Training

The Department for Education has launched a free online Early Years Child Development Training course aimed at childminders, nursery practitioners and nursery managers.

The flexible online training has been developed in consultation with early years experts and provides a greater understanding of child development.

The training;

• Gives practical advice for supporting children in early years settings
• Includes opportunities to reflect on your practice
• Reinforces your understanding through learning check questions and tests
• Allows you to pause and restart the training at any time
• Offers the chance to download certificates of achievement for each module

There are 7 existing modules that include child and brain development, personal, social and emotional development, communication and language, physical development, mathematics and effective curriculum and assessment.  

A new module, Module 8: Supporting Individual Differences and Needs, is also now available & covers:

• Key SEND legislation and guidance, the importance of early identification of children’s developmental differences and needs and the distinction between them  
• The impact of knowledge and learning gaps on children’s development, the identification of developmental differences and needs and when to make a referral  
• The importance of the practitioner’s role in supporting children’s individual differences and needs, creating an inclusive environment and building effective partnerships with those around the children    

Users can complete the online, interactive modules in any order, at any time and can access this new module their My Modules page. Each module takes around 2 hours to complete.  It is recommend that the modules are completed in consecutive order as the training has been designed to build on previous modules, starting with child and brain development underpinning all the others.   

Providers can access the training at any time to suit them and work through the modules at their own pace by going to https://child-development-training.education.gov.uk