As I begin to prepare to take on a master’s degree I reflect upon my career so far and wonder how a timid and self-conscious nursery nurse has come so far. Although my current role as a Family Support Worker has taken me from my early years comfort zone, I still consider myself to be a passionate and dynamic early years advocate and have worked within a wide range of settings. I firmly believe in the holistic approach to education and care and I am fully committed to empowering positive outcomes for children and their families. My experience so far dictates that nurture and high quality intervention and provision should be at the heart of this. I qualified as a BTec Nursery Nurse in 1996. I have since spent my entire career being proud to work within the early years sector and hold my nursery nurse qualification close to my heart. However, as a nursery nurse I reached a point where I felt that status was gradually being diminished and referred to by many other titles, EYP, EY teaching assistant, childcare assistant etc. This often made me feel the job role was not valued. I was always someone’s assistant. As such I reached a point whereby my experience and skill base was not always appreciated or even respected at times by my professional peers as I remained a Level 3. Although the role I had at the time was one of leadership within a Two Year Old provision in a primary school, the responsibility, skillset and expertise I was expected to have was not reflected in my salary or status, regardless of my achieving and maintaining “Outstanding” Ofsted judgements. I became tired of feeling inadequate and realised knowledge was power. This then became the motivation for me to gain graduate status. Working full time and studying for my degree at University of Sunderland was not easy however I was able to connect the two and benefit both my studies and my knowledge for the role. The opportunity then arose to pilot the Early Childhood Graduate Performance Competencies. This has been fantastic in drawing and reflecting on existing knowledge and developing new knowledge. To be able to have the role validated in this way I believe can only be a positive in transforming the often belittled attitudes towards the early years sector. Most importantly it will ensure our youngest learners have the highest quality resource available to them – the practitioner! I have a constant aspiration to learn more and apply to existing knowledge and experience, and a strong desire to support the next generation of workforce to achieve graduate status, improving standards within the sector. My goal eventually is to work someway in supporting practitioners to improve and develop, nurturing their skills as I have with young children all of my career and support them in realising how much of a privilege it is to contribute to young children’s journeys. Helen Haygarth