Everybody understands the importance of high quality early years, and every setting aims to deliver it, but what ‘quality’ looks like, and how you achieve it, is far more complex.

For more than 25 years, early years settings have followed CREC’s Effective Early Learning (EEL) Programme to develop their quality, and local authorities up and down the country used it as their preferred quality improvement model. At its peak, thousands of early years settings undertook the training, implemented its model, and signed up to its quality assurance accreditation. In around 2010, the DfE ended its ‘Investors in Children’ programme and Ofsted became the ‘sole arbiter of quality’ meaning local authorities were no longer able to support quality improvement in the same way.  As demand for a whole-setting improvement programme fell away CREC focussed its work on other areas but has never doubted the value of the programme. In the meantime, many settings have continued to use the principles of EEL in their daily practice and CREC has allowed trained settings to continue using the tools.

We have decided the time is now right to breathe new life into EEL and will be working with a number of early years settings over this academic year as we update the 10 Dimensions of Quality and present it in the form of 10 x 1hour virtual CPD sessions for early years settings.

What are the EEL 10 Dimensions of Quality?

The 10 dimensions of quality provide a professional development opportunity for settings to work with CREC in real time over the 2024/25 academic year as we walk you through an action cycle of self-evaluation and quality improvement. The series of ten online sessions scheduled throughout 2024/25 will outline a dimension of quality in turn and invite participants to evaluate their own provision accordingly. The sessions are linked and participants are encouraged to commit to all ten sessions in support of their own settings self-evaluation and journey to raise quality.

All sessions will be Monday 4-5pm and live online via Zoom. You are welcome to join sessions as staff teams to facilitate your own reflective discussions. Sessions 2-10 will include a brief opportunity to reflect on the previous dimension and provide the opportunity for discussion in groups (either online in breakout rooms, or in person with your staff team, depending on how you wish to engage).

For this academic year only, we are offering this opportunity for just £180 (inc VAT) per setting. This will give you live access to 10 x 1 hour online CPD sessions offered by CREC plus access to various tools and resources used in the original EEL programme. We do ask that those settings who participate help us shape materials and resources for future participating settings by bringing their knowledge, experience and professional reflections to each session.

Please note the booking form for this online programme is now closed.