My experience with the DfE's Childminder Mentorship Programme

The Department for Education's Childminder Mentorship Programme offers bespoke support to childminders across England. Experienced early years professionals will support childminders to help children recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this blog, childminder Danielle Burgess feeds back on her experience with the programme.

"To be completely honest, I didn't even expect to be chosen for the programme, having teacher status/QTS, it crossed my mind that other individuals may be selected first so whilst I applied, I soon put it to the back of mind with a view that if I was not picked, there was always the September enrolment to try. I was really pleased to receive the invitation to join the mentorship programme and thought it would be a way to brush up on skills and my expectation really was a handful of group meetings or sessions to share experiences. My idea was it would be a low-key arrangement, perhaps a few emails or shared generic links, "I would be happy with that," I thought!

When I first had contact from the area lead by phone, I realised the programme was much more personal than expected with a one-to-one selected mentor, this was wonderful to hear as that continuity through the same contact means I have gained the trust and created a bond with my mentor (Becky) as we open up, share ideas, discuss targets and work together. I find talking to the same person is really valuable to my learning, it prevented repetition, conflicting conversations or confusion and makes that commitment more special in my opinion especially as I am an adult currently mid way through my autism assessment. Having the same contact was really important for me for that routine and consistency.

Becky, my mentor, really is like having your best friend beside you. She is very understanding, patient and keen to listen to me as an individual, she has adapted the training, support and advice to how I learn best. Becky asks about my personal timetable and preferences for ways to learn so we can best select the way to move forward and make strategies work in place around my commitments. This level of care and understanding has allowed me to remain calm and focused without any stress or feeling overwhelmed. We discuss appropriate steps, meaningful targets and realistic goals that are achievable and relatable to my setting and my children. I have felt comfortable from the very beginning with Becky, the conversation runs smoothly and naturally and there is always a pleasant friendly feel to our discussions.

The variety of links and sites has been mind-blowing, coming from a teaching background, my training was very much class-based and heavily reliant on assessment. Due to this, I felt I had missed out massively around child development knowing around the early years, the reassurance I needed has come through this programme. Becky has sent me amazing support from optional subscriptions, websites, podcasts and webinars to websites, support groups, books and audio files. I have added so many links and transcripts to my favourites, I feel completely back in control of my learning. This knowledge that has been shared has made me feel incredible, the world is at my fingertips and the pathway was made clear. Not only do I have the toolkit now to manage how I want, I feel able as an individual to go and retrieve exactly what I need. The programme is so flexible and adaptable to every need and knowing this means I can go in all sorts of directions and link together to fill in gaps. Many of the skills and knowledge I have picked up, I was never aware of, it is like I am going through childminding training from the beginning and I honestly think if other childminders had this level of training and support from the start, our sector would be in abundance of experienced, happy workers and not the crisis we witness today.

All of this was the key to my recent Ofsted inspection, my very first graded inspection since I opened my business in 2021. I was anxious, nervous and felt overwhelmed before they came until the programme started which gave me the biggest boost! I knew as I opened the door I was ready as I had the information loaded and ready to go. I was able to share with the inspector my mentor programme and describe to her the work we had done so far, this is acknowledged and published in my report. I confidently told her about the shREC strategy we have applied to our setting and this was even written about as evidence in the report too, the fact we acknowledged the children and built on their communication. My CPD file was shown to document the links I have available to me and my plan of action moving forwards to be an outstanding practitioner, again all referenced in my report and my inspector was impressed by the commitment to the programme, I didn't tell her how easy it was though to implement!

I would never have thought I would be chatting so freely on my wooden logs to an Ofsted inspector about Vygotsky's theory of the more knowledgeable other and deliver it with meaning to what was happening in front of us! We lead a chat into learning theories, name dropping studies like a celebrity! I left feeling the overall experience, though tiring and long was really worthwhile with fist bumps of success that I had demonstrated the practitioner I was and what more, being excited about the practitioner I would become.

Overall, without a doubt I would recommend the programme both to new childminders and existing. There are so many avenues to explore with this mentorship and the increase in my self-belief and knowledge has been incredible. As already mentioned, I am going through an adult private autism assessment so to have something that works so flexibly and that can be adapted to each student is very reassuring for everyone, even the neurodiverse care providers amongst us." 

If you're interested in finding out more about the Childminder Mentor Programme and how to apply, we're running two 'Meet the Mentor' sessions in July 2023.

• Saturday 8th July, 11:30am - 12:30pm at St Edmund's Nursery School, Bradford, BD8 9QW
• Thursday 20th July, 6pm - 7:30pm online via Zoom.

Click here to sign up to one of these sessions