From Nursery Room to Training & Development: How One Tutor Is Widening the Path into Early Years for Men

Ask Harry Wren what changed when he moved from running his own nursery into training apprentices, and he doesn’t talk about a career change. He talks about scale.

“Running my own nursery made me realise just how many opportunities there are for men within the early years sector beyond working directly in a nursery,” says Harry, now a Development Coach at Parenta, the early years apprenticeship training and nursery management software provider. “I wanted to show that the skills and experience gained in early years can open doors to many different roles, including coaching, mentoring, training and professional development.”

That’s not a small point for an apprenticeship sector that’s constantly weighing up how to improve retention and completion. Harry’s own route, from nursery manager to developing other practitioners, is exactly the kind of visible progression path apprenticeship providers spend a lot of time trying to show learners who can’t yet picture where their qualification leads.

“Moving into coaching and supporting other practitioners felt like a natural progression for me,” he says. “I could use my own experience to help others grow in their careers.”

Leading, not lecturing

Harry’s approach to coaching draws on what he sees as the biggest misconception about early years work: that it’s simple, instinctive, and doesn’t require much thought.

“A lot of thought goes into what we do, even during what might look like simple play,” he says of frontline practice, a principle he carries into how he trains apprentices to observe, plan and reflect on their own work rather than just complete tasks.

It’s a distinction that matters for training quality as much as it does for nursery floors. An apprentice coached by someone who’s genuinely run a setting, managed a team and made the judgement calls day to day brings a different kind of credibility than one working purely from a curriculum.

The bigger picture behind one coach’s story

Harry’s own visibility as a man in a coaching role sits against a stark backdrop. According to a House of Commons Library briefing citing 2024 Department for Education data, men make up somewhere around 2 to 3% of England’s early years workforce. That imbalance doesn’t stop at the nursery door, it shapes who apprentices see leading, training and progressing within the sector too.

That matters more than it might first appear. GenderEYE, a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and carried out with Lancaster University and Norway’s Queen Maud University College, looked specifically at what male-inclusive approaches to early years workforce recruitment and retention actually achieve. Visible role models in training and leadership roles, not just on the nursery floor, are part of what that research points to as making a measurable difference.

Busting the one-path myth

If there’s one message Harry wants apprentices and prospective apprentices to hear, it’s that early years is not a single-track career.

“The biggest myth I’d want to bust is that early years has one single career path, and that your options are limited to working in a nursery,” he says. “You can progress into leadership and management, coaching, mentoring, training, consultancy and many other areas, using the knowledge and skills you develop along the way.”

For men in particular, who remain a small minority entering the sector at all, that message carries extra weight. Harry’s advice to anyone weighing it up is direct.

“If you’re even thinking about it, give it a try. Give it a chance, get some experience, and see where it takes you. You might be surprised by just how many opportunities the sector can offer.”

What FE and training providers can take from this

Harry’s story is a practical case study for apprenticeship providers thinking about how to improve retention and progression, not just recruitment. A visible, credible route from practitioner into training and leadership roles gives apprentices something concrete to aim for and having that route modelled by someone who doesn’t fit the sector’s usual demographic sends its own message about who this career is actually for.

As Harry puts it:

“The more men we have enrolling on apprenticeships and ultimately working in the sector, the more normalised it will become.”