DfE | Customise Your Early Years Child Development Training

This article has been brought to you by Slough Borough Council's Early Years Advisory Teacher, Karen Loft on behalf of DfE for the attention of all Early Years and Childcare Practitioners.

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"We are writing to let you know about a change we have made to the Department for Education’s Early years child development training.

We have listened to feedback that users want to be able to complete the modules in any order based on their own preference or things they are focused on in their setting at the time. We have made this change.

We do still recommend that the modules are completed in consecutive order as the training has been designed to build on previous modules, starting with child and brain development underpinning all the others. However, we hope the flexibility this change brings will enable users to complete the training in a way that works best for them."

About the training

The flexible online course:

  • has been developed by early years experts
  • has been tested with early years practitioners and experts, and refined based on feedback
  • gives practical advice for supporting babies and children in early years settings
  • reinforces understanding through videos, learning check questions and short end of module tests
  • allows users to pause and restart the training at any time and now start the modules in any order
  • offers the chance to download certificates of achievement for each module

The first 5 modules of the training covering child and brain development, personal, social and emotional development, communication and language and physical development are available and can now be completed in any order.

Look out for further modules which will be added throughout 2023 – Mathematics is next and will be launched early in the Autumn term.

Sign in to your account.

We are keen to hear your  feedback on the training. You can also sign up to take part in a user research interview about this training course on this form. 

You can update your email preferences in the My account section of the training