Active Tots Reaches a New Milestone with First Flying Start INSET Day

On 7 July, the Active Young People team at Cardiff Met Community hosted a landmark Active Tots training event in partnership with Flying Start, bringing together over 100 nursery practitioners from Darling Buds and Little Angels for a dedicated workforce development day. The event marked the first time Active Tots has been delivered as a whole-staff INSET Day, reflecting the growing demand and popularity of the programme.

Active Tots is a physical literacy programme designed to help early years practitioners understand how to engage, motivate and inspire physical activity within young children. The training goes beyond teaching activities; it supports staff to better recognise the importance of movement in early childhood development and equips them with practical ways to nurture children's confidence, competence, motivation and enjoyment of being active.

For many years, Active Tots has been successfully delivered in partnership with CHaSPS as part of the wider workforce development offer across Cardiff. Through these sessions, hundreds of practitioners have developed the skills and confidence needed to create movement-rich environments for young children. However, the scale of this latest training represents an exciting new chapter.

One of the strengths of Active Tots is that the programme has continually evolved through listening and learning. Feedback from practitioners, settings and partners has shaped the content and delivery over time, allowing the programme to be adapted to the specific needs of different nursery environments. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, the training has been refined through each cohort, ensuring that it remains practical, relevant and responsive to the challenges and opportunities practitioners face in their own settings.

By training the entire workforce from Darling Buds and Little Angels at the same time, every member of staff now shares a common understanding of physical literacy and can work collectively towards supporting children's movement development. Rather than individual practitioners returning to their settings and attempting to embed learning alone, whole teams can now champion active play together, support one another and create a consistent experience for children across each nursery.

This whole-setting approach is particularly important because children's physical literacy develops through everyday interactions. From encouraging exploration and movement through play, to providing positive feedback and creating engaging environments, every member of staff has a role to play in helping children build their skills, confidence and motivation to be active.

A key feature of the Active Tots programme is the mentoring support that accompanies the training. The learning does not end when practitioners leave the room. Settings are offered follow-up mentoring and consultation support, providing opportunities to discuss implementation, troubleshoot challenges and build confidence as they embed physical literacy principles into everyday practice. This ongoing support helps ensure that training translates into meaningful and sustainable changes within settings.

Active Tots has become a trusted and proven workforce development programme within Pipyn Actif, supporting the wider ambition of creating movement-friendly environments for young children and families across Cardiff. The programme continues to demonstrate how investing in practitioner development can have a lasting impact on the experiences of children within early years settings.

To help put learning into practice immediately, each setting received a resource goodie bag containing equipment and materials that can be used to deliver the activities explored during the training. These resources will support staff to continue embedding movement opportunities into their daily practice and reinforce the key messages from the day.

The success of the event was made possible through a huge team effort. Special thanks go to the Operations Team, the entire Active Young People Team, the IT Team and the Physical Activity and Inclusion Team for their support in planning and delivering the day. Their collective contribution ensured that more than 100 practitioners had a positive and engaging learning experience.

As demand for Active Tots continues to grow, this first whole-workforce INSET Day demonstrates the value of investing in early years practitioners and the significant potential for scale. By equipping entire nursery teams with the knowledge, skills and confidence to promote physical literacy, and by providing ongoing mentoring and support beyond the training day itself, we are helping to create environments where every child has the opportunity to develop the skills, motivation and enjoyment needed for a lifetime of movement.