CREC are delighted to announce that St Thomas Centre Nursery has gained DfE accreditation to be a School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) provider and that from September 2015 up to 50 Teacher Trainees will be able to gain Qualified Teacher Status and PG accreditation with the CREC Early Years Partnership which comprises over 40 ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ schools in the West Midlands.

The BECERA 2015 Conference will be held at MAC Birmingham on 17th & 18th February 2015

Press release taken from: https://www.early-education.org.uk/press-release/integrated-early-years-services-must-go-back-top-agenda

This week sees the launch of an exciting new partnership project for the Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC) working together with NFER and IEA in Hamburg to develop the ‘Early Childhood Education Study (ECES)’ – an important new international study of how different countries provide for their youngest learners, and the effect this provision has on shaping their lives. With so much recent discussion and political debate around which country’s Early Years system offers the best start in life it is anticipated that this study will shed real light on the subject.

Last week (20th March 2014) Sir Michael Wilshaw issued a letter to Early Years Inspectors. The content of this letter was of concern to many in the sector, so CREC, Early Education, and TACTYC have issued the following joint response .

Having a good grasp of theories of child development and what these look like in practice, can make a positive difference to how you understand babies and children and the ways in which they learn.

We are running a competition on twitter. All you need to do is follow us and tweet an original photo about learning outdoors using the hashtags: #janwhite and #learningoutdoors.

The 'Participatory Research Methods in Early Childhood' seminar, part of the Festival of Social Science was a success.

The group met in Birmingham and the session was led by Professor Chris Pascal, Director of The Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC).

CREC and the ESRC co-organised an event on participatory Research Methods in Early Childhood, part of the Festival of Social Sciences.

CREC in Birmingham (Charitable Trust) is pleased to announce that it has selected two new students who they will support to complete a PhD in conjunction with University of Wolverhampton.

The IEA International Early Childhood Education Study (ECES) is a new comparative research program of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The purpose of ECES is to explore, describe and critically analyse early childhood education (ECE) provision and its role in preparing children for the learning and social demands of school and wider society. In

From sitting up on their own to throwing a ball, children gradually develop the physical skills needed for their adult lives.

A recent report by Play England, Play Wales, Play Scotland and Play Board Northern Ireland, found that more than 50% of adults played out at least seven times a week when growing up, compared to less than a quarter of children today.

In late 2012, CREC was commissioned by Ofsted to evaluate the available evidence (published within the past 10 years) on what Early Years interventions made a proven difference in closing the gap in educational attainment caused by socio-economic inequality

The Department for Education commissioned CREC to produce ‘Comparisons of International Childcare Systems’ drawing on data gathered from an earlier study for the Economist Intelligence Unit entitled ‘Starting Strong: Benchmarking early education across the globe’.

With the support of the University of Wolverhampton, CREC in Birmingham is very excited to announce that we will be funding two more PhD's, following the success of our latest intake .

In view of supporting the development of outstanding research in the Early Years field, CREC in Birmingham, a charitable trust which aims to promote and carry out research into issues of early childhood provision, is now accepting applications for these two new places.

Professor Cathy Nutbrown's reflection on the relationship between the final report of the Nutbrown Review and current policy proposals can be downloaded here.

Following an interesting roundtable discussion led by three UK universities at the recent BECERA conference, Professor Denise Hevey from The University of Northampton has put together a statement in response to the EY Teacher proposal in More Great Childcare.

We are pleased to announce that CREC in Birmingham Charitable Trust (Reg. No. 1121861) is launching a PhD bursary in the field of Early Years Education.

Europe is constantly changing and evolving and these developments happen at every level - local, regional, national & European. In the EU the main trends in demographic change include an aging population, low birth rates, changing family and household structures and migration.