If it’s February, it’s Nursery World Show time! The New Year came with exciting learning opportunities, new experiences and fresh ideas for the Avenor Nursery teachers.

Miss Vera and I had the opportunity to choose from high-quality inspirational seminars and masterclass sessions, as well as from a wide variety of expert-led practical workshops in the Live Theatre and in the Nutrition Zone.

We attended half-day masterclass sessions, led by some of the biggest names in Early Years education including world-renowned Dr. C. Cybele Raver, Dr. Danielle Matthews, Penny Tassoni and Alice Sharp, related to:

  • the development of self-regulation and its impact on our ability to evolve as life-long learners;
  • the place of self-regulation within the complex nature of early years education and care;
  • children’s brains and the path to self-regulation;
  • attitudes towards learning, self-regulation, the importance of the home environment and its implications for best practices in EYFS;
  • communication and language approaches focused on language development and delay;
  • Language experiences across the curriculum, early language and the foundations of literacy.

We also took part in one-hour seminar sessions, all delivered by highly reputable, key names from across the Early Years as well as in live theatre workshop presentations, such as “Be the Best You Can Be!” and “Exciting Learning Opportunities”.

The seminar programme focused on ideas around best practice within EYFS, their implementation, delivery and outcomes. The topics included:

  • supporting children’s mathematical thinking;
  • transitions for two-year-olds;
  • Reggio-inspired practices;
  • behaviour and self-regulation;
  • Multilingualism in the nursery.

With so much happening and so much to choose from we also spent some time in “The Early Years Resources & Learning Zone” investigating a great range of new resources and discussing with early years suppliers about ways to enhance our educational settings.

We also received advice and guidance from great trainers and consultants. Alice Sharp, Managing Director of the training centre “Experiential Play”, was interested in brainstorming with us about our training needs.

The Nursery World Show 2017 is the ideal environment for everyone in the Early Years community to meet, collaborate and learn from each other, and provides us with an exciting, motivating and engaging experience. We have already started to share our newly acquired knowledge and skills with our colleagues so that we can continue providing children with the best learning opportunities.