Latest news
We will be holding the Annual General meeting of TACTYC members at the International Convention Centre Birmingham, Broad Street | Birmingham | B1 2EA | on Saturday 15 June 2019 at 3.30-4.15pm, following the conference. Reports and minutes of previous AGM will be added to the website soon. We are looking forward to seeing you there. Here is the agenda.
You can access the registration form here – still plenty of time to register!
TACTYC supports Fair Future Funding Action Week 10th June 2019
TACTYC strongly supports the ‘Fair Future Funding’ campaign. High quality early childhood education and care is vital for our children and families. But it needs to be properly funded for all if it is to be accessible and sustainable.
‘Enough is enough’
Childcare funding rates were set and frozen in 2015 – this means they don’t take into account the subsequent increases to business hikes, minimum wage rises or any other cost increases since then. This has forced providers to put up parent fees and, in some cases, close.
The early years plays a vital role in our communities helping children reach their full potential and enabling parents to get back into work – but the sector is struggling to stay sustainable due to government under funding.
This summer we have a chance to change that.
https://www.eyalliance.org.uk/fair-future-funding-action-week-10-june-2019
The Government’s ‘Comprehensive Spending Review’ – where the government sets out its spending priorities – is taking place in the coming months. It’s an opportunity for providers and parents to warn MPs about what will happen to childcare provision in their constituencies unless the government takes action on under funding.
Join in the Early Years Alliance action week from 10 June: write to your MP, invite them to your setting and make sure everyone knows the effects of the childcare funding crisis.
Providers (and parents) can sign-up to take part using this link: www.eyalliance.org.uk/fairfuturefunding
TACTYC Conference and AGM
Saturday 15th June, Birmingham ICC
There is still plenty of time to register – come and join us for a fabulous day.
Inspirational Keynote speakers include:
Mine Conkbayir
Mine is an award-winning author, lecturer and trainer. She has worked in the field of early childhood education and care for over 18 years. Mine is the winner of the Nursery Management Today (NMT) Top 5 Most Inspirational People in Childcare Award.
She is the founder of the award-wining Cache Endorsed Learning Programme, Applying Neuroscience to Early Intervention and Self-regulation in the Early Years. Mine is currently collaborating with the Metropolitan police force, mentoring police officers to improve their interactions and relationships with young offenders. She is also undertaking a PhD in early childhood education and neuroscience in an attempt to bridge the knowledge gap between neuroscience and early years discourse and practice. She hopes that her research will provide the necessary evidence to seek solutions to this persistent issue, with the ultimate goal of enhancing provision for babies, children and young adults.
Sally Goddard-Blythe
Sally is the author of eight books and other published papers on child development and neuro-developmental factors in specific learning difficulties including: Reflexes, Learning and Behavior, The Well Balanced Child, Raising happy healthy children, Attention, Balance and Coordination The Genius of Natural Childhood, and Movement – Your Child’s Fist Language; The A,B,C of Learning Success – a reference source for all professionals involved in child development and education, Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning and a screening test for clinicians and health practitioners. She is also a contributor to Too Much Too Soon. Early Learning and the Erosion of Childhood and Improving the Quality of Childhood in Europe 2012 and Early Childhood Redefined.
Her clinical work also includes the use of Johansen Individualised Auditory Stimulation (JIAST) a system which uses stimulation with frequency specific music to improved auditory processing. She has both a personal and professional interest in the role of music in developing language skills. Sally has lectured on the role of infant reflexes in development and later learning problems to many different groups throughout Europe including to a working party on child well-being at the European Parliament in Brussels and in different parts of the United States. She has also developed and standardised training in The INPP Method for use throughout the world. INPP was established as a private research, clinical and training organisation in 1975, dedicated to the development of assessment procedures to identify underlying physical factors in specific learning difficulties and adults suffering from anxiety and panic disorder and to the development of effective remediation programmes.
Sally is a member of the International Alliance for Childhood and the former “Open EYE” campaign – a pressure group dedicated to ensuring that children’s developmental needs remain at the top of the agenda for government recommendations for early years’ education in England. She is also a patron of Toddler Kindy Gymbaroo, a programme developed in Australia to optimise children’s development in the early years and a member of the educational panel for Dyspraxia awareness.
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There is still time to register … You can choose to present via ‘Research Briefing’, ‘Discussion Forum Item‘ or ‘Poster‘ or just come along for some exciting discussions and contemporary research sharing/CPD opportunities. The deadline for applications is 31 May 2019, so plenty of time to get your application in. The application form is here. […]
Please read TACTYC’s response to Ofsted’s EIF consultation here – this was sent to Ofsted this week by our fabulous President Wendy Scott. TACTYC also offered further suggestions of contemporary and seminal research to support policy making in the early years. We will keep you posted on progress! Please do share with your colleagues and […]
How exciting! Please register for our June conference using the attached leaflet and do let us know if you wish to have a stand at the conference. The deadline for applications is now 31 May 2019, so plenty of time. We look forward to seeing you there!
Have you registered for our June conference? ‘Happiness and wellbeing in the early years’ Saturday 15th June 2019, Birmingham ICC. Would you like to have a trade/exhibition stand at the conference? Please contact Karen.boardman@edgehill.ac.uk.
TACTYC 2019 Conference/AGM ‘save the date’
Our next TACTYC Conference is taking place on the 15th June in Birmingham at the ICC … more details to follow. Please save the date and we look forward to welcoming you all! Our current title is: ‘You’re doing my head in!’ Happiness and well-being in the early years. Physical and mental health are such big issues now that we decided it would be an excellent focus for our 2019 Conference.
OUR GOOD NEWS FOR 2019 IS ……!
We are delighted to tell you that we have been awarded Charitable Status as of now. The Exec will have to get to grips with what all this means in the new year and our committee will be reconsidered then. Currently we have six Trustees. More news after our first meeting on the 9th January.
The first Reflections paper of the year…
Read Linda Withey’s paper about a project supporting parents to understand the role they play in young children’s language development through ‘Chit-chat’ everyday.
EARLY YEARS JOURNAL
We have a new ‘Call for Papers’ on Early Childhood Education and Care in Latin America here and on our Journal’s pages. And we say goodbye to one of our long-standing editors: Professor Pamela Oberhuemer has recently retired and we wish her well in her retirement and thank her most sincerely for all her work on behalf of the Journal and TACTYC.
40th ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE
What a wonderful Conference … the hotel was magnificent and the Enterprise Centre Derby just brilliant! See the full report here.
Why do so few men work in the UK early years sector…and why should we care?
Dr Jo Warin and Dr Jeremy Davies have launched their two-year study GenderEYE (Gender Diversification in Early Years Education) – an international and UK based study, with a focus on recruitment , retention and support for men in the early years education workforce. This coincides with International Men’s Day on 19th November. Worth a look ….?
Quality Assurance of CPD for Teachers
The Chartered College of Teaching, alongside the Teacher Development Trust and Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University are undertaking a project jointly funded by Wellcome Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation to design and test a system to quality assure the provision of continuing professional development for teachers. The online consultation closed recently but if you would like to respond, further information is available here.
MEMBERS: PLEASE BE AWARE …..
We shall be closing the TACTYC Current Account on the 31st March, 2019. This means that any subscriptions paid to that account MUST be changed to the Treasurer Account before that date. We do want you all to be part of our campaigns and help us sustain pressure on governments and institutions to make excellent provision for early years professional development and young children, so WE NEED YOU! Please amend your standing orders now please and ensure that any bank transfers are made into the new Account (see members only part of the website).
OCCASIONAL PAPER 11 is here!
Mimi Tatlow-Golden (Open University) has written an excellent paper entitled ‘Big, strong and healthy’? Children, food and eating in the early years, and the role preschools can play, in which she encourages all practitioners to ‘support children and their families to grow not-too-big, very strong, and definitely healthy, by engaging in the evidence-based strategies’ outline in the Paper. A must read.
STUDENT REFLECTIONS AWARD 2018
We are delighted to announce the winner of this year’s Student Reflections Award is Megan Taddeo, a post-graduate student of the University of Winchester with a paper entitled ‘Listening to children creates Better Beginnings‘. Runner-up was Rachel Hingston from the University of Plymouth with ‘Two birds with one stone: How putting the value back into mealtimes can improve children’s communication and long-term health’. Megan’s paper can be read here.
MEETING WITH THE DFE ABOUT THE REVISION OF THE ELGs IN THE EYFS
The notes available here describe some of the main discussion points between colleagues from TACTYC and the DfE at a meeting held on 13th July 2018 in response to the current draft ELGs being piloted over the next academic year.
BOOK REVIEWS
We have a new book review about outdoor play with under 3’s – read it here.
STOP PRESS!
Please read this recently published article ‘The views of teachers, parents and children on the Phonics Screening Check: the continuing domination of politics over evidence’ by Margaret M Clark OBE Also see Education Journal (10 July 2018) ‘Evidence based policy?’ BERA has just released its Report on Baseline Assessment, which is very well formulated – read it here. Early Education has made a strong comment on the revised EYFS and ELGs – read it here.
MEMBERS: Do read our Latest online NEWSLETTER HERE
TACTYC BOOK SERIES
TACTYC’s Book Series has added a sixth book to its collection: recently launched is Gina Houston’s book: Racialisation in Early Years Education: Black Children’s Stories from the Classroom. All the books in the series are available from Routledge.
Young children as guinea pigs TACTYC STOP PRESS Read the latest TACTYC paper, entitled ‘Young children as guinea pigs: the Reception Baseline Assessment Framework’. This paper criticises the government’s planned national pilot of reception class baseline testing, released by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA). Education experts from TACTYC state that the STA framework fails to address […]
Here is the 2019 One Day Conference and AGM Leaflet for you to reserve you place. Fabulous keynote speakers – such an important topic for early years!
Saturday 15th June, 9.15 – 4.30pm Further details are here We look forward to seeing you there!
Read more
Association for Professional Development in Early Years 
