The Level 6 early years teacher degree apprenticeship has been approved for delivery.

The Department for Education has published the  Early Years Teacher Degree Apprenticeship standard.  However, starts on the apprenticeship will only be possible once a suitable end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) has joined the Apprenticeship Provider and Assessment Register (APAR).

This graduate-level qualification will give everyone from school leavers and junior staff to senior leaders the opportunity to move into a specialist career in the early years sector.

Employers involved in creating the standard include Bright Horizons, Kids Planet Day Nurseries, Storal, Our Monkey Club,  Pen Green Children’s Centre and Little Pips Nursery, as well as the National Day Nurseries Association and the Early Years Alliance.

Stella Ziolkowski, director of quality and training at the NDNA, said: “It is positive to have another route, via the degree apprenticeship, to getting more people gaining an early years teacher qualification. We would urge the government to look again at the long-term status of early years teachers with regards to qualified teacher status. The first five years of a child’s learning and development is the most crucial and we want to see equity between early years and school-aged education.”