Supporting Children's Learning and Development Training

The training below will support all Early Years professionals in developing and enriching the teaching, learning, environments and assessment practices they provide for children in their provisions. 

Live Training 2025-2026

Supporting Communication and Language

 

Personal, Social, Emotional Development

 

Understanding and Supporting Behaviour

 

Outdoor Learning

The Hive has developed a series resources that will provide practitioners with ideas and strategies to get outside in all weathers, seasons and spaces.

 

Supporting Boys in the EYFS

Supporting boys in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) means creating environments and experiences that align with their developmental needs, interests, and learning styles. Research shows boys often benefit from more movement-based, hands-on, and outdoor learning opportunities. 

The number of boys in Waltham Forest achieving a Good Level of Development continues to rise year on year and remains above both National and London averages. In Waltham Forest, in 2023, 68.3% of boys achieved GLD, this increased to 69.1% in 2024 and 70.2% in 2025.   This compares to the National average, where 61.9% of boys achieved GLD in 2025 and London average, which saw 64.3% of boys achieve GLD.  However, there is still some work to be done to bridge the gap between the number of girls achieving GLD in Waltham Forest (80% of girls in Waltham Forest achieved GLD in 2025) and the number of boys achieving GLD. 

See below for ideas on how practitioners can better support boys:

 

EYSS

Early Years System Support Training

The following training is delivered by the Early Years System Support. 

Early Years System Support is a model which allows early years professionals to work with their peers to share knowledge and best practice, support each other and receive or deliver the advice and training required to deliver high quality childcare.

Sing our Story Project
Sing our Story project will develop practitioner’s music practice in the area of song writing and song creation Working with Groundswell Arts, practitioners will discover how to use personalised music making to support the wellbeing and development of the children in the setting. Book here

Dancing Together - Benefits of movement for babies to toddlers EYSS

Working with Groundswell Arts, this course will focus on participants understanding of the importance of developmental movement from birth to five. It will give both theoretical and practical knowledge of how to create opportunities to support children’s movement within your settings.

You will build confidence in leading movement activities as a practitioner and understanding the benefits to children’s learning, wellbeing, and development of cultivating spaces which acknowledge dance and movement as a form of communication. Book here

The Characteristics of Effective Learning 

This training webinar from EYSS training partner St Mary’s Teaching School will support early years professionals to develop a deep understanding of characteristics of effective learning and how best to support them in daily practice.

Watch Webinar

 

Literacy 

Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Development Matters 2023.

Develop high quality book areas

Book friendly spaces are a great way to support a child’s confidence, language, creativity and imagination. Consider how well used your book corners are by the children in your setting. Do children and adults visit frequently and spend time immersed in books or is your book area in need of a make-over?

The following resources will support you to develop high quality book areas and give ideas on supporting families to share books at home:

 

Maths

 

Reading Together

Follow the link to discover ideas to support families to engage with reading and story telling at home. 

 

Story Time Project

Follow the link to find stories to share with your children and families read by our resident story tellers Lottie and Valentine.

 

Environment & Curriculum

 

Further Resources and CPD

 

Festival of Creativity and Recovery

The Festival Of Creativity and Recovery in the Early Years focuses on children’s and practitioner emotional well-being and explores a variety of creative and immersive curriculum experiences to take back to settings.

Recording from each session are now available for viewing: