Business Skills for Early Years
A new DfE funded programme to help to improve the business skills of early years and childcare providers, this project will bring together good practice resources and information on business management in an online hub as well as offer a series of free training events and seminars.
The Business Skills for Early Years develoment programme is led by 4Children and will be delivered in partnership with OPM (the Office for Public Management).
Funded by the Department for Education, the programme is designed to improve the business skills of early years and childcare providers, including nurseries and pre-schools, out of school clubs, children’s centres and childminders.
The project aims to draw on good practice resources that are already available to support the sector as well as develop some new support materials where appropriate.
Beginning with a research programme targeting early years and childcare providers and local authority support staff, the programme will produce a report outlining the key issues affecting business skills and sustainability and the identified gaps in skills and knowledge.
The programme will go on to develop a 'web-hub' of resources, links and signposts to business support materials as well as:
- A number of regional events for local authority and other support staff and stakeholders who are working with the sector to help to improve their business skills
- A series of local training seminars for childcare providers on some of the key issues and gaps identified through the research report
- A programme of training for identified 'Business Champions' to better enable them to support early years and childcare providers to improve their business skills