*Special Feature* - Focus on Accreditation

On 25 February the PEAL team were invited by Sefton Council to Firwood Cricket Club, Bootle, to host a celebration event for the latest group of candidates gaining the City and Guilds Work with Parents award. There were a mix of candidates who successfully gained the single unit of the new 3599 award as well as a small group of Childminders who had completed ‘top-up’ training to enable them to gain a further two units of the award, completing the qualification.

The successful candidates were presented with their certificates by Joyce Connor, Principle Officer of the Early Childhood Unit, who has been involved in developing PEAL since it first began in 2005.

Lynda McQueen from the Sefton Early Years and Childcare Quality and Inclusion Service opened the celebrations and presentations were also given by Annie Simpson from the Pre-school Learning Alliance (who worked alongside the PEAL team, providing the Assessment Centre for these candidates), and Joyce Connor.

Two successful candidates, Jane Marsh from The Big Picture Nursery and Sarah Kay from Home from Home presented insightful accounts of how the PEAL training and accreditation had improved practice within their settings, not only for them as individuals, but for their team too.

Following a lunch and a chance to network with other participants of the PEAL training from Sefton Council, attendees were moved into smaller groups and invited to share their experience of both the training and accreditation. These discussions provided valuable feedback for the PEAL team to enable continual improvements to the accreditation process.

To find out more about accreditation for PEAL training, please visit the accreditation section of the PEAL website.