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What You’ll Gain As A Learner
Through expert teaching, quality resources and ongoing support from industry professionals, you will gain the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to promote the health and wellbeing of all children whilst ensuring compliance with the appropriate legislation and progress through their senior career. With nearly 20 years of training expertise and a 99% learner success rate, we are your trusted partner in supporting your career growth and helping you empower young lives.
What You’ll Gain As An Employer
Your success is our priority. We provide expert teaching through quality resources and ongoing support to take your staff to the next level as they progress through their senior career in childcare, developing reflection skills and initiating personal and team continuous professional development. Our specialist support prepares them to promote the health and wellbeing of all children. With nearly 20 years of training expertise and a 99% learner success rate, leave the teaching to us as we support the next generation of teaching professionals on their journey to empowering the lives of children and young people.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner is a senior early years professional, often working as a room leader, early years lead, deputy manager or manager. In this role, you lead practice within your setting, promote children’s health and wellbeing, and ensure compliance with legislation and policies. You act as a key person and advocate for children, while supporting and developing your team. This apprenticeship strengthens your leadership, reflective practice and ability to drive continuous improvement across your provision.
This apprenticeship is right for you if you are already working in a senior early years role and want to progress further. If you are passionate about improving practice, leading others and making a lasting impact on children’s outcomes, this could be the right next step for your childcare career.
To take part in this apprenticeship, you should already be working in a senior early years position, like a room leader, early years lead or deputy manager, so you can meet the programme requirements through your job role.
You will develop advanced knowledge of child development, safeguarding, health and wellbeing, pedagogy, curriculum and leadership. The programme focuses on reflective practice, leading teams, partnership working with parents and maintaining effective systems such as assessments and records. Overall, you will gain the skills and confidence you need to lead high-quality practice and drive continuous improvement within your childcare or education setting.
Off-the-job training is structured learning that takes place during your paid working hours but is separate from your normal day-to-day duties. You’re required to complete a minimum of six hours per week of this training to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for your apprenticeship. Activities can include online learning, workshops, research, mentoring and other development tasks relevant to your role.
You can also use our Learner Enrichment Calendar to help plan and log suitable off-the-job activities that count towards your training hours, giving you a variety of ways to grow your skills throughout the programme.
All off-the-job training hours must be recorded on your e-portfolio system, Aptem, to ensure your progress is tracked throughout your apprenticeship.
This apprenticeship lasts for 21 months and during this time, you will receive a blend of face-to-face and online learning and support. You will also be required to complete a minimum of six hours per week of off-the-job training before your learning is assessed through an End-Point Assessment (EPA).
Once you’ve completed the Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner apprenticeship, you can continue to build your skills and progress your career into more senior leadership and management roles within early years education.
A common next step for further academic and professional development is to progress onto a degree-level programme, such as a bachelor’s degree or a degree apprenticeship in areas like early childhood studies, education, leadership and management, or children and young people’s services. Degree apprenticeships are typically delivered by universities and employers, and while we do not deliver these programmes directly, they are widely available across England through higher education providers.
This Level 5 programme equips you with the leadership, knowledge and practical experience needed to take on senior roles and provides a strong foundation if you choose to pursue degree-level study in the future, supporting your continued progression within the early years sector.
For the learner, there is no cost.
For employers, the cost depends on whether you pay the apprenticeship levy:
- Levy-paying employers: You can use your apprenticeship levy funds to cover the full cost of the programme. These funds are accessed through your digital apprenticeship service account.
- Non-levy employers: The government will fund 95% of the training cost, meaning you only pay the remaining 5%. Based on the £6,000 funding band, this equates to just £300.
This makes apprenticeships a highly cost-effective way to develop your workforce, with the majority of training costs covered through government support.
