Early Years Professional Status
Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) is a Level 6 qualification that gives professional status for practitioners in England at the Early Years Foundation Stage (ages 0 – 5), which is intended to be broadly equivalent to Qualified Teacher Status (ages 5 – 18). Introduced by the British government in 2007, via the Children's Workforce Development Council, EYPS courses require a degree, and include an assessment in an early years setting – either a placement or within the trainee's own early years workplace. In Scotland the Childhood Practice Award (either a professional development award, a practice based ordinary degree or a post-graduate diploma) similarly requires those who lead and manage Early Years (In Scotland Childhood Practice incorporates all those working in non-compulsory children's services 0–16). The original idea saw that by 2010, all early years children's centres in England (of which there are nearly 3000) will be required to have at least one Early Years Professional (EYP), and by 2015, all full daycare settings will be required to have at least one, which will require 20,000 EYPs. In 2013, Early Years Professional Status was replaced by Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS). The numbers of people undertaking training is falling each year.