{"id":18753,"date":"2025-10-02T12:05:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/?p=18753"},"modified":"2025-10-02T12:05:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T11:05:42","slug":"devon-county-council-re-design-of-education-and-learning-services-early-years-and-childcare-update-3rd-october-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/devon-county-council-re-design-of-education-and-learning-services-early-years-and-childcare-update-3rd-october-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Devon County Council re-design of education and learning services \u2013 early years and childcare update: 3rd October 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to our third update on the redesign of Devon\u2019s Education and Learning Services, with a spotlight on Early Years and Childcare. We\u2019re committed to keeping you informed and supported every step of the way.<\/p>\n<h2>Where we are now<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve now completed all HR processes for Early Years staff. Everyone has been allocated a role and knows their locality. The final step is assigning staff to specific learning communities\u2014updates on this will follow soon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Each locality includes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Service Lead \u2013 Early Years<\/li>\n<li>Senior Early Years Inclusion Practitioner<\/li>\n<li>Early Years Inclusion Practitioners (x3)<\/li>\n<li>Team Lead \u2013 Quality &amp; Inclusion (Early Years)<\/li>\n<li>Early Years Quality &amp; Inclusion Partners (x2)<\/li>\n<li>Early Years Welfare &amp; Sufficiency Advisers (x3)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Meet your local teams<\/h2>\n<h3>North and Mid<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Service Lead: Amy Fedrick<\/li>\n<li>Team Lead: Nikki Phillips<\/li>\n<li>Senior Inclusion Practitioner: Mercy Derby<\/li>\n<li>Quality &amp; Inclusion Partners: Sally Rice, Sarah Innalls, Sarah Murts<\/li>\n<li>Welfare &amp; Sufficiency Advisors: Liz Carroll, Helen Stephenson, Katy Vallance<\/li>\n<li>Inclusion Practitioners \u2013 Helen Dickerson, Nicola Martin, Debra Heywood and Lindsay Kuzara<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Exeter and East<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Service Lead: Katie Johnson<\/li>\n<li>Team Lead: Tamsin Robertson<\/li>\n<li>Senior Inclusion Practitioner: Donna Lester<\/li>\n<li>Quality &amp; Inclusion Partners: Sarah Murts, Karen Salter, Julie Paddick<\/li>\n<li>Welfare &amp; Sufficiency Advisors: Kerry Thorne, Neil Copland, Nik Wills, Alexa Gill<\/li>\n<li>Inclusion Practitioners: Amanda Hawkins, Rachael Schaechter, Ella Rice and Jemma Harrison<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>South and West<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Service Lead: Samantha Chapman<\/li>\n<li>Team Lead: Sue Bolt<\/li>\n<li>Senior Inclusion Practitioner: Mandy Astin<\/li>\n<li>Quality &amp; Inclusion Partners: Louise Carter and Brenda Glanville<\/li>\n<li>Welfare &amp; Sufficiency Advisors: Lorna Pitts, Sharon Gehringer and Beth Trantham<\/li>\n<li>Inclusion Practitioners: Cara Lye, Helen Barton, Jacqueline Goult and Marie Loader<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Job titles and ways of working<\/h2>\n<p>You may notice updated job titles that align with the wider Inclusion and Learning structure. For now, your support remains unchanged:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your named contacts are still your go-to person<\/li>\n<li>Any ongoing work will be completed by the current staff member or transitioned smoothly<\/li>\n<li>We\u2019ll share more details on changes next week<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What\u2019s next?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>October: Review of current working arrangements<\/li>\n<li>Stakeholder survey and engagement opportunities<\/li>\n<li>Continue using current referral routes (Early Years Complex Needs, Nursery Plus, Inclusion Funding)<\/li>\n<li>Transition to new delivery models in the second half of Autumn term<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>A message from the team<\/h2>\n<p>We are really looking forward to seeing many of you at the <a href=\"https:\/\/devoneducationservices.co.uk\/events\/0a307509-f172-4fab-9b28-2a6f5b481848\/Early-Years-Foundation-Stage-conference-Growing-up-well\" rel=\"noopener\">conference<\/a> next week and we will be looking to gather your thoughts and ideas on how we can improve the service to meet your needs. There will be lots of other opportunities in the next few weeks to share your views so look out for our survey.\u00a0 We know change can feel daunting\u2014especially when you&#8217;re already working hard. Our aim is to move forward gently and collaboratively, testing new approaches with you and our families, and keeping communication clear and open.<\/p>\n<h2>Contact your locality lead<\/h2>\n<p>If you have questions or need support, please reach out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>South and West \u2013 Samantha Chapman, <a href=\"mailto:Samantha.chapman@devon.gov.uk\">Samantha.chapman@devon.gov.uk<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Exeter and East \u2013 Katie Johnson, <a href=\"mailto:Katie.johnson@devon.gov.uk\">Katie.johnson@devon.gov.uk<\/a><\/li>\n<li>North and Mid \u2013 Amy Fedrick, <a href=\"mailto:Amy.fedrick@devon.gov.uk\">Amy.fedrick@devon.gov.uk<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to our third update on the redesign of Devon\u2019s Education and Learning Services, with a spotlight on Early Years and Childcare. We\u2019re committed to keeping you informed and supported every step of the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 23:56:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18754,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18753\/revisions\/18754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/eycs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}