Early Healthy Futures Workshop Overview

The SASP Early Years team have developed Early Healthy Futures workshops which is free for all Early Years practitioners to access across Somerset. The workshop lasts for around 3 hours and aims to provide practitioners with ideas to help develop physical activity interventions, the recommended physical activity guidelines and how this can support a child's physical literacy journey through EYFS. Over the years SASP have tweaked these workshops to provide the most up to date information for physical activity in EYFS. These workshops are also a great opportunity to network with other practitioners you wouldn't normally see outside of settings to share best practice with each other.

SASP's Early Years team aim to put these workshops on every term for practitioners to participate in. We are able to provide these workshops for free as we are fully commissioned to work with Early Years settings through the Somerset County Council Public Health. We have strong links with the SCC Early Years team, who kindly promote our workshops for us through the Early Years Communities across Somerset. Practitioners are able to book onto our workshops through our SASP Early Years website page under 'Early Years CPD and Course Opportunities'. One of our locations is our SASP office in Wellington, and the other is in Shepton Mallet at Mendip District Council offices. We are open to using other venues across Somerset to reach all Early Years staff across our County.

Our typical workshop would allow participants to access the following:

The benefits of physical activity
An introduction to the Early Healthy Futures project
Collaboration with other practitioners
Lots of physical activity ideas
Physical Activity statistics and guidelines

During the workshop practitioners will also have the opportunity to work with the SASP Early Years team at their setting in a variety way depending on the type of support they require.

Practitioners that take part in our workshop are given the opportunity to find out SASP's Early Years offers. Alongside our Early Healthy Futures program, we also keep busy through various different ways. We have recently created an Early Years Physical Activity Audit, which you can find out more about by clicking here. We have also created an'Early Years Physical Activity Group', which helps to drive the work that we do in Early Years. We aim to meet with the group at least 3 times a year. Our group has massively grown over the last year which has been a great success. These are just a few examples of some offers we mention at our workshop.

We aim to develop our workshop in line with government guidance but also through the feedback we receive from participants that take part in the workshops. Here are a few examples of some great feedback we received:

Q - What did you enjoy about the workshop?

The background knowledge of statistics, the activities that we learnt so that we can implement them in preschool" - Charlotte, Milverton Preschool

Q - What will you hope to put into practice at your setting following the workshop?

"Lots of activity ideas to share with the rest of the team. How easy it is to change an activity and make is something very different; a good skill to learn!" - Katie, Beehive Day Nursery

Q - What did you enjoy about the workshop?

"I thought the workshop was superb. Both Stuart and Dan were professional, engaging, enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable in their field. The activities were great. Not only were they adaptable in any setting, but our own ideas could have been easily incorporated. I thought the number of activities made on offer were superb, and again really impressed by what was an offer for a free course." - Laura, Wells Cathedral Junior School