Right from our very beginning in the year 2000 we have offered a variety of training sessions and courses. These have been whole team and on-site for various organisations, mainly early years and childcare providers, but also large corporate businesses or charities like Next, Thomas Cook, or Cancer Research UK. We’ve partnered up with very many local authorities and have enjoyed the privilege of being their training provider of choice for all things early years education quality and practice, leadership and management, and safeguarding and child protection.

Throughout those 25 years of experience in collaborating with local authorities, providers, and early years educators, we have always aimed to ensure the child remains central to everyone’s practice and the impacts of our support are clear and evidenced for the workforce, parents, and children in equal measure. Back then, and all the way up to the pandemic, everything was in-person. Online meeting and training technology, whilst it existed, really wasn’t something anyone wanted – or asked for. That has changed of course. And over this period, how we all use IT and devices, and how children use them has been completely and utterly revolutionised.

There are loads of benefits to be gained from delivering online. We reach more people, the cost to the participant can be lower (assuming the IT equipment is available to facilitate access), the carbon footprint is reduced (as there is no need for travel for the delegates and the trainers), the time is used more efficiently (as downtime, travel time, and waiting around is removed), and things can happen quickly to respond to events (sometimes the next day), and the fast-pace of government policy developments (as training and information needs emerge).

We are all rightly concerned with the effects upon children of too much screen time. We are also acutely aware of how much time adults are looking at screens in the workplace. Today, I spent time with 50 people who I usually see online on a regular basis, as we had our termly face-to-face meeting. The pleasure in people’s faces and the conversations held on the sidelines were something to behold. People were connecting on a human not digital level, the pace was slowing down, eye contact was meaningful, and the silences held in shared experience and comradeship were joyful. Anyone wanting to assess the cost benefit analysis of such an investment as a complement to online interaction, should have been stood by my side as the evidence was compelling.

Our practice has always been founded upon the value of face-to-face engagements, delivering top-quality, tailored training sessions that enhance and encourage learning. Whether that be when we are working with professionals working in the sector, or when they in turn work with the children and families in their settings or schools. Face-to-face sessions facilitate discussion, support and challenge, debate, storytelling, and fact-sharing through research-led training. Learning happens in the room, between learners, and beyond the sometimes one-way-traffic between the trainer in one box, and the learners in the other boxes on screen.

Face-to-face training offers so much more. And whilst we will grow and develop our online training offers, we will continue to promote the investment in providing in-person training as a quality-assured approach, delivering qualitative and sometimes immeasurable (or at least innumerable) outcomes, ensuring that our sector and learners receive the highest standard of continuous professional development.