Knowledge Zone

Portobello Institute's Early Years Department is proud to present the latest in a series of expert-led webinars discussing important topics in Early Childhood Education. 

Our third webinar will be led by Nóirín Hayes, who will speak about Embracing a Nurturing Pedagogy on Monday, November 8 from 7 - 8 pm. Register here now. 

This online series of free webinars gives you the opportunity to hear from leaders in early years education. They will discuss their research, experience and offer you access to their wealth of knowledge. 

Each webinar can be accessed for free from anywhere in the world and will bring valuable, thought-provoking, practical advice and information to the fore in the early years sector.

Nóirín Hayes is a Visiting Academic at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin and Professor Emerita, Centre for Social and Educational Research, Technological University Dublin.  

Working within a bio-ecological framework of development and through a child rights lens she teaches and researches in early childhood education and care [ECEC] with a particular focus on early learning, curriculum and pedagogy and ECEC policy.  

She is convener of the Researching Early Childhood Education Collaborative [RECEC] at Trinity College and authors many reports, articles, and books.  

She is co-author of Introducing Bronfenbrenner: A Guide (2017); In Search of Social Justice: John Bennett’s Lifetime Contribution to Early Childhood Policy and Practice (2018) and Supporting Positive Behaviour in Early Childhood Settings and Primary Schools: Relationships, Reciprocity and Reflection (2020).  

“My presentation will link with the four Aistear strands, with a special focus on communication.  We will look at the role of the elements of a nurturing relationship, engagement, and attention in the context of play. The developmental benefits of that, giving them the power of oral language in terms of self-regulation.  

“A ‘nurturing pedagogy’ is a term I came up with in 2007, it is a term that captures the unique aspect of ECCE (Early Childhood Care & Education). I try to highlight the educational nature of care as well as the caring nature of education. This is what makes ECCE unique,” she said. 

Watch our webinar with Tim Gill on Risk in Outdoor Play here.  

Watch our webinar with Dr Judith Butler on Trauma Sensitive and Relationship Based Approaches in Early Childhood here. 

Register for our upcoming webinar with Nóirín Hayes here. 

Each webinar will be led by our guest speaker, there will also be an early year's practitioner or Portobello Institute student/graduate who will relate the topic of the talk to what the day-to-day implementation of the information looks like and a live questions and answers session with the speaker at the end. Each event will last roughly one hour.  

Part of Portobello Institute’s mission is to develop the involvement of STEAM subjects in early childhood education so each event will ask the question of how science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths could play a role in relation to each topic.  

The webinars will be held on the platform ‘Hopin’ which you can access by registering and following a link to the event on the night. The link will be emailed to you in advance.   

We invite everyone working in the early years sector in any capacity to join us and engage in our talks which have been planned with the most recent challenges and developments in early childhood education in mind. 

An e-certificate of attendance will be emailed to those who join on the night.  

Portobello Institute’s foundations lie in early years education since its establishment offering childcare courses in 1981.   

We look forward to welcoming you to the Portobello webinar experience, please register today and come along to share in the knowledge from these experts in early childhood education.   

Registration is now open to attend. Please sign up and share with your friends, Facebook groups and colleagues in early years.