Brooksby Melton College
FE Course Handbook 2014/15
A guide to your course
Course Title: Early Years Educator (EYE) Level 3 Diploma
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Contents
Welcome Statement
On behalf of all the Academic and Business support staff we would like to welcome you to
Brooksby Melton College.
Our aim is to provide you with an excellent service and to make your studies with us as
rewarding and enjoyable as possible. If you feel there is anything we should change to
enhance your learning experience, we would welcome your suggestions.
We expect you to attend all relevant classes and enter into the spirit of College life so that
you develop yourself and help develop others whilst here. You can do this by making sure
you participate fully in all learning activities and join in with everything the College has to
offer.
The college is a strong believer in equality of treatment and opportunity and thus expects all
staff and students to treat each other with respect, consideration, and dignity (as you would
expect them to treat you). In this context, we would welcome any comments which help us
to maintain our equality policy.
Our 3 Core values are:
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We believe that our students and customers should enjoy, benefit and be successful
from the time they spend with us.
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We believe that all staff should contribute to improving the experience of our
students and customers.
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We believe the College should be an open and respectful place to work and study
that promotes and rewards achievement
Each of these values we look to embrace each year with ALL staff and students alike which
we hope will support you and your studies.
Finally I would like to take this opportunity to wish you every success in your programme of
study.
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Your Course team contact details
The Programme Team Manager for your area is: Carol Barker
The Course tutor for your course is: Wendy Metcalf
Brooksby Melton College Switchboard: 01664 850850
STAFF NAME
Carol Barker
CONTACT DETAILS
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension: 174
Wendy Metcalf
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension: 161
Barbara King
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension: 121
Assessor:
Email:
Telephone: 01664 850850
Internal Extension:
Respect campaign
Respect for All
The College is committed to providing opportunities for all, and respects that each person is
different with regard to ethnic origin, gender, disability, mental health, sexual orientation,
age, religion and belief and economic and social need.
The College wishes to help students and staff understand and celebrate diversity by creating
a culture of inclusivity, where all are valued. It will do this through a campaign known as:
“Respect for All”.
As part of the Respect for All campaign, the college will:
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deliver a structured group tutorial programme that promotes respect, diversity and
inclusion,
embed respect for all within the college curriculum and showcase student projects that
promote Respect for All,
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Carry out other cross-college campaigns that will support the Respect for All agenda.
Further information can be found on Moodle.
Term dates & Course timetable
At the start of your course you will be given a timetable that shows the sessions you have
each week, who teaches them and where they are. This may change through the year as
modules or units are completed and your course tutor will issue your with any changes. The
dates of the terms for your course are:
Autumn Term
2014
Monday 15th September 2014 – Friday 12th December 2014
Half Term/Reading Break: Monday 20 to Friday 24 October
Spring Term
2015
Monday 5th January 2015 - Friday 27th March 2015
Half Term/Reading Break: Monday 16 to Friday 20 February
Summer Term
2015
Monday 13th April 2015 - Friday 3rd July 2015
(May Day: Monday 4th May)
Spring Bank Holiday: Monday 25 May – Friday 29 May
Your Course Design & Delivery
To make sure you are ‘work ready’ or equipped to go on to further study we have built your
course up from a series of elements. The following section shows you how your course is
made up. Your Course Tutor will spend time in induction week going through this with you.
Main qualification
Course Title: Early Years Educator (EYE) Level 3 Diploma
Awarding Body: Cache
Year 1
Module /
Unit No.
Module Title
Value/
credits
2.1
An introduction to the role of the early years practitioner
2.3
Use legislation relating to the health and safety of children
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1.6
Understand the needs of the mother and baby during pre-conception,
pregnancy and the first year of life
1.3
Support physical care routines for children
2.2
Understand legislation relating to the safeguarding, protection and welfare of
children
1.1
Support healthy lifestyles for children through the provision of food and nutrition
1.2
Support healthy lifestyles for children through exercise
1.4
Promote children’s emotional well-being
2.4
Use legislation relating to equality, diversity and inclusive practice
1.5
Understand how to support children who are unwell
3.1
Understand the value of play in early years
2.5
Work in partnership
Year 2
Module /
Unit No.
Module Title
Value
3.2
Plan, lead and review play activities which support children’s learning and
development in relation to current frameworks
3.3
Apply theoretical perspectives and philosophical approaches to play
3.4
Contribute to enabling play environments
3.5
Develop emergent literacy skills of children
3.6
Develop emergent mathematical skills of children
3.7
Understand the needs of the child in preparing for school
3.8
Understand how to plan to meet the needs of the developing child
3.9
Facilitate the cognitive development of children
3.10
Develop the speech, language and communication of children
3.11
Promote the physical development of children
3.12
Promote the personal, social and emotional development of children
3.13
Support children with additional needs
3.14
Use observation, assessment and planning to support the development of
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children
3.15
Use longitudinal studies to observe, assess and plan for children’s needs
4.1
Engage in professional development
Employability and additional qualifications
Short qualification title: Autism awareness Level 2 (Optional)
Awarding Body:
Description:
To further increase your understanding of autism awareness from level 1
Additional qualification title:
Awarding Body:
Description:
Functional Skills Design & Delivery
Being able to communicate and carry out basic numeracy is a vital skill that we all need if we
are going to be able to work or complete further study. Your course has built into it
timetabled sessions giving you an opportunity to develop these essential skills. These
sessions will be staffed by a specialist tutor who will work with you to develop the skills you
need to be able to achieve the functional skills qualifications that are part of your
programme. For some students it may be more appropriate to be studying towards a GCSE
in English and/or maths. This will be determined following your diagnostic assessment
process.
Assignment & Assessment schedule
You will be provided with information on and a plan of how your programme will be
assessed. This will be given to you at the start of your course and show you how assessment
will take place. It will include information on hand in dates and is planned so as to spread
the assessment load out throughout your course.
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You will be given feedback on each piece of assessed work as it is handed back to you. If it is
a practical activity then initial verbal feedback followed by written feedback will be given so
that you are clear of how you have done.
Your Course tutor will also keep an accurate, up-to-date record of your progress in relation
to the course and this will be used in your one to one reviews and to inform parents of how
you are progressing with the course.
You will be given opportunities to get feedback on how you are progressing prior to having
to submit work for final assessment (summative assessment).This is called formative
assessment. Formative assessment will be built into all teaching sessions and used to check
that learning has taken place and used to give feedback on progress on activities that will
form part of final assessed work.
Submitting work for summative assessment
The college has put the following guide lines in place to ensure you are given adequate
opportunity to achieve your justified grade in all assessed work. For the purposes of the
following guidelines summative assessment is defined as those pieces of assessed work and
their associated submission dates identified in the assessment or assignment schedule
which meet the awarding body achievement towards identified criteria. It is important that
whilst you may want to aspire to achieve the highest possible grades, that is not always
realistic. The time and effort you put in to any one assessment needs to not put your ability
to pass all at risk. Your tutor will need to guide you on this.
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Your tutor will ensure that you understand the assessment requirements, the nature
of evidence you will need to produce and the importance of time management and
meeting deadlines.
All work must be submitted by the submission date which is printed on the
assignment brief.
You should agree with the tutor if merit and distinction criteria are to be attempted as
part of an assessed piece of work.
Merit and distinction criteria may be either set as part of an assessment or as a
separate piece of assessed work to that set for pass criteria.
If for any reason you are unable to meet the specified deadline you should:
Complete a Mitigating Circumstances Form which must be forwarded to the tutor at
least ONE WEEK before the original date stating the reason(s) why this is the case. If
the tutor and Lead IV determine that the reason is valid then a new deadline will be
set. An extension will normally only be granted once for any individual assessed piece
of work.
Any unauthorised late submission of work or Mitigating Circumstances Form which is
not agreed will result in failure of the unit.
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If you are away from College on sick leave your tutor can, provided they have the
agreement of the Lead Verifier, complete the Mitigating Circumstances Form on the
your behalf. This can only be done where a valid justified reason for absence from the
college has been provided.
Once you begin work for summative assessment the tutor must not provide specific
assessment feedback on the evidence produced by you before it is submitted for
assessment, or confirm achievement of specific assessment criteria until the
assessment stage.
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Some of your work will be sampled by another person (Internal Verifier) who will ensure
that standards are being maintained in accordance with the requirements of the awarding
body. This may involve someone watching your tutor assess you. Sometimes the awarding
body send someone in to the College (External Verifier) and they may want to talk to you or
see you being assessed. In both cases your Course tutor will inform you of this.
Appeals against assessment decisions
If you are not happy with how a grading decision is made about an assignment or
assessment then you should initially raise this with your tutor to try to have it informally
resolved. However if this is not resolved then there is a formal process of appeal in place. A
full version of this policy can be found on Moodle.
Plagiarism & malpractice
It is important that in any work you do that is assessed that you don’t break the awarding
body guidelines. If you do then this is called ‘Malpractice or Plagiarism’. The following are
examples of how this might occur:

Plagiarism is using another person’s work/research without acknowledging where
the information came from. It is very serious and can put your college career at risk.
Sometimes you may want to use an author’s exact words – if so it is essential that
you use a quotation. Everything between quotation marks should be exactly as it is
in the original source.
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Working together with other students to produce work that is then submitted as all
your own work. You should not be discouraged from teamwork, as this is an
essential skill, but work submitted for assessment must show where this has
happened.
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Pretending to be someone else in order to produce the work for another or
arranging for someone else to do the work for you in an
assessment/examination/test
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Making up of results and/or evidence
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Failing to abide by the instructions or regulations for an assessment or test.
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Misuse of assessment/examination material
For further detail please refer to the full policy on Assessment Malpractice which can be
found on Moodle.
Progression / Career opportunities
Progression & career opportunities after your main qualification.
Academic routes
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Higher education –(this course carries UCAS points)
HNC/HND in childhood studies/Foundation degree
BA Degree
Employment routes
2
Enter the workforce as an Early Years Educator
Unsure still
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Why not meet up with your course tutor if you are unsure of the route within your
chosen subject area. If you would like more general options/advice then why not
book to see Student Services.
Supporting you while you study and listening to what you want
Study skills workshops
Within your timetable we have put in a session where you will be able to work on
assignments and receive help and support from your tutor in developing your study skills.
Being able to work on your own and complete tasks to a timescale is an important skill that
we need to help you develop.
Using Referencing for Assignment writing
Whenever you draw on another writer’s ideas, you should give a clear Reference to their
original work. That is, you need to say which particular book or article you are working
from. You should also give the page number and the date of publication so that your reader
can find the same details. The details of the reference can be provided in a full list of
references at the end of your assignment.
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In an essay you often have to discuss other people’s ideas and when you do so you are
expected to use a ‘citation’ that is, a brief reference to where those ideas came from. You
could use phrases such as: As Jones argues ……..
 As Smith states…….
 According to Williams……. etc.
Following these statements a reference is required e.g. (Smith 1998), (Jones 2002), or
(Williams 2003).
A much more detailed explanation of the Harvard Referencing system can be found on
Moodle.
Additional learning support
As part of supporting your success you will have taken an Initial Assessment as part of the
recruitment process or in induction. We are able to use the results of that to provide
additional help to those that are shown to need it.
Additional learning support may take many forms at the College, the nature of which is
decided by the Learning Support Team. These include:
 A Learning Support Assistant (LSA) who works with you one to one outside of normal
classes.
 Small group workshops, which enable students to work with other students who have a
similar literacy and/or numeracy need.
 A Learning Support Assistants (LSA) who will give you in-class support during normal
teaching sessions.
 Special support during the examination process which might include additional time,
someone to read or write for you.
 Special equipment, including software to help you with learning difficulties and/or
disabilities.
Full details of the Additional Learning support policy can be found on Moodle.
Tutorials are monitoring your progress
Whilst you are at College you will have a series of Group and individual tutorials. The Group
tutorials are sessions where all of your group will be provided with information on a range
of topics to help you develop your personal and social skills.
As well as these sessions you will also have regular one to one tutorials. These will be with
your Course tutor or in the case of some large groups another key member of the teaching
team. This is your opportunity to discuss personal progress as well as setting and monitoring
of targets to help make sure you succeed.
Whilst you are with us these and other important personal information will be built up to
form your Personal Learning Plan (PLP).These are accessed through Moodle which is the
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College’s Virtual Learning environment. Moodle will also be used to deliver teaching
sessions and contains much of the teaching material used in your teaching sessions.
A full explanation of these the PLP’s and how to use them will be given during your
induction programme and can be found on Moodle.
Student Voice and College/Course Reps
Your views are important to us. You will automatically become a member of the Student
Union when you join the College. Throughout your course we encourage you to give your
opinions on a wide range of issues ranging from the quality of teaching to the service in the
refectory. We will give you feedback on the Moodle site in the format of ‘You said, we did’
to keep you informed. Each course has course reps that will be involved in organising
activities and also to giving feedback on course specific matters.
All students are encouraged to participate in on-line questionnaire surveys held at induction
and end of year.
Student Council meetings are held on each campus, on a termly basis, to allow students to
raise issues of campus or college-wide concern.
Separate HE/FE Forums, attended by course representatives, are held twice a year to raise
campus/college wide issues to senior management and campus staff.
Student focus groups are held with groups of learners (usually course-based) to obtain
feedback on specific issues of concern. Students are also invited to participate in working
groups of the College, as appropriate.
A Praise and Complaints scheme is available for students to report comments, suggestions,
compliments and complaints on any aspect of their learning experience on an on-going
basis.
Please support and get involved in this important aspect of College life as it not only helps
us to understand what is important to you but also helps you to develop valuable
employability skills and for us to make sure that you get the most out of the time you spend
with us.
In addition to the above College-wide processes, teaching departments obtain their own
student feedback on programme or departmental practice, which is used to support review
and development processes.
Enrichment & employability opportunities
An important part of your time here is spent developing your employability skills. To help
with this your course has additional visits, trips and guest speakers. You may also get
involved in offsite work although this will depend on your progress through the year with
normal college sessions. For your course these are:
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Visits and trips
NEC Education Show
Guest speakers
Child protection/safeguarding
Off site work
Work placement: MUST be in an Early Years setting, graded 2 or above (good/outstanding)
0-1 year 11 months – 50 hours
2-2 years 11 months – 280 hours
3-5 years – 400 hours
Total of 730 hours minimum
Work experience (delete if not applicable)
Work experience forms an important part of your course and has specific work experience
dates built into the timetable. You can find out when your work experience dates are from
your Course Tutor or the Work Experience Coordinator. They will be meeting with you to
explain what you have to do and how to find placements. If you have work experience built
into your course it is because you must complete this in order to pass your course. This is
compulsory and you will receive an assessment which will be reflected in your final mark.
For more information on work experience please refer to the Work Experience Guide which
can be found on Moodle.
Health and safety on your course
Making sure you stay safe and don’t put others at risk whilst on your course is essential. In
order to make sure of this you will receive instruction and guidance on all that you do. The
following information is here to supplement information and instruction given out in
teaching sessions.
Risk Assessments & Safe systems of work
All students must adhere to the BMC college policies and procedures. You will find this
information on Moodle.
BMC is a non-smoking college. There are designated areas for smokers, and these must be
adhered to.
In the event of a fire, please follow the nearest exit and report to your class tutor. Do not reenter the building unless told so by the designated fire marshal/course tutor.
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Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
During your placement you may need to use PPE. This will be provided by the Early years
setting.
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Non latex disposable gloves
Non latex disposable aprons
Please follow ALL the Early years settings policies and procedures
Uniform and equipment
For college you will need:
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Paper and pen for class notes.
2 x A4 Lever arch folders.
Clothes worn to college must be appropriate for a learning environment.
Mobiles phones can be brought to college, however are NOT permitted to be used in
the classroom or placement.
For placement you will need:
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BMC placement T-shirt
Tailored black trousers
Appropriate black shoes
BMC navy fleece (optional)
Please note: At all times during placement hours, the BMC uniform MUST be worn.
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