Saturday just gone, September 24th, was the night of the Nursery World Awards 2022. As mentioned in previous blog posts, they had a new category this year, ‘Early years apprentice of the year’, and SS Educational Services were sponsoring this award.
Every award is important, but for SSES, working with the next generation of apprentices, this particular award struck a chord. Although there was only 1 winner, and 4 short-listed, we feel congratulations should go to every apprentice nominated by their employer.
We would like to focus this post on the winner, Jack Bedder, SEND to learn, Blyth. One of the judges quoted ‘A true testament to the profession and a role model to the children.’
The following is taken from Nursery World:
Jack has overcome and is still dealing with so many health issues, and yet he has managed to find a career where he can excel and show young children and their parents that you can achieve and fulfil your dreams despite the hurdles.
Jack is passionate about supporting children with additional needs and helping their parents understand that their children can achieve, especially after his own experiences of lack of support at school.
As regular readers know, the owners from SSES are also foster carers, and so they found the following particular poignant:
Jack has made an immediate difference to a one-year-old child who started nursery in February. The child has already been in foster care and is now with their prospective adoptive parents, but suffers from huge separation anxiety. Jack has worked with them as a key person to settle them into nursery life and has helped support their mum during this difficult time. Thanks to his work, the child is now settled into nursery and happily explores the activities on offer, interacting well with a range of staff.
Jack is only 17 and his manager says, “‘Jack is an asset to our nursery family and has been an excellent find. He has taken on additional training whilst doing his apprenticeship and is very keen to enhance and develop his knowledge. I could not ask for a better apprentice.’
If you would like to read the full article, you can find it here.
Congratulations Jack!
