POLICY
TCelebrating wo for Twos James Hempsall
It’s been two years since the Achieving Two Year Olds (A2YO) national support contract for early learning for two year olds was launched. Here, we ask James Hempsall, National Support Director, to reflect on these two years, and to look ahead to the final year of the contract and beyond.
“When A2YO started we were all looking a year ahead to some pretty challenging targets, and we were confident results could be achieved. This was all because the early years sector has always responded incredibly when it has been asked to grow, change and raise its quality. This past success meant we were one of the few areas of new government investment in a period defined by austerity and the downsizing of local authority infrastructure. That said, the timing of this task required local authorities to dig deep and deliver despite all the conditions they were experiencing personally and corporately. Much of our early work was about supporting motivation and creativity. We’re really passionate about reaching least advantaged children with early learning opportunities they wouldn’t ordinarily have access to. The two year olds programme is a massive equalities and economics agenda. So that’s what drives the A2YO programme.
We were clear in our initial plans we wanted our work to relieve and not add any burden. Information
sharing was central to this strategy and we knew that termly regional networks would be invaluable in sharing ideas and problems with a common purpose for developing solutions and helping each other. Two years on and we have delivered over 40 such meetings, as well as two national networks. Our DVDs, six in total, have also been really well used. A picture really does tell a thousand words, and parents’ comments in these films have changed lots of things. And our open online information community on LGA Knowledge Hub has been one of their most vibrant and busy groups. We have loved working with our local authority colleagues, with their passion and drive, and commitment to getting things right. We’ve continued to take the temperature of developments via our self-
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one of the few areas of new inv government
estment in a period defined by austerity and downsizing
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