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New 'early years practitioner' badge for level 2 courses

The job title ‘early years practitioner’ will be used to show which level 2 qualifications count in ratios, Nursery World has learned.

New qualifications will be badged ‘early years practitioner’ to show that they are based on the Level 2 criteria which came out in July.

A DfE spokesman said, ‘If the qualification meets the level 2 criteria, awarding organisations have the choice to use ‘early years practitioner’. In the same way if a Level 3 qualification meets the Early Years Educator criteria they can use the term Early Years Educator [in the title of the qualification].’

Any qualification which meets full and relevant criteria will be on the DfE’s early years qualifications list.

The term Early Years Educator was adopted for level 3 qualifications to show which courses new candidates should take to be counted in ratio. A qualifications review by Cathy Nutbrown found nearly 450 qualifications at different levels resulting confusion for candidates about which were full and relevant courses.

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