Thank you all who responded to my blog ‘Colleagues, it’s time we finally took control’ calling us to stand up together and Reclaim Early Years from the toxic grip of our politicians. I was overwhelmed by the response.

The Government plans to loosen the ratios of adults to children as well as various changes including reducing quality support measures – it convinced me that our sector needs to find its voice, take over the Early Years debate, and communicate our concerns to the public.

more »

Our Minister has done us a favour, although she may not have realised it. She has thrown down the gauntlet by challenging the sector, so now we need to take control of our own destiny. Her ill-informed and contradictory facts beg us to tell our story, so every individual – especially parents – is left with a clear understanding of what we as a sector want for the children in our care.

UPDATE: for more recent developments on this topic, please join our new group ‘Reclaim Early Years‘ on LinkedIn.

more »

On Friday morning I traipsed up to Camden to hear Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills announce his plans for Early Years at a Press Conference. I was determined to hear it from him directly, given the realities of what is happening on the ground at the moment.

more »

A few weeks ago Wave Trust in partnership with the DfE published its report Conception to Age 2 – The Age of Opportunity. I was part of the Special Interest Group that helped shape the report, along with an eclectic group of colleagues representing a variety of areas affecting babies – such as mental health, training, health visiting and psychology. I learned much from this group, chaired by the erudite and softly spoken George Hosking, CEO of Wave Trust. The full report is 135 pages long and a text book in its own right, but the shortened version designed for local busy commissioners is a useful summary with reference to all the relevant links.

more »

(Alice Sharp,  Mrs Patterson and Mr Patterson – but not Mrs Patterson Mr Patterson – also along for the ride!)

It seems like a long way to go to talk about Leadership and Home Learning, but nothing can underestimate the quality thinking time offered when attending conferences (even as the speaker); and Scotland is always a place to watch when it comes to the Early Years, not least in terms of Government strategy. The National Parent Strategy (designed to ‘Help Make Scotland the Best Place in the World to Grow Up’) is a laudable ambition. I would love a similar one for England, not least so we at LEYF could add our own vision of ‘Building a better future for London’s children’ into the mix.

Anyone who knows me understands that I am a dreadful passenger, and so driving on dark, wet roads from Glasgow out to Inveraray had me crossing all fingers, with eyes wide shut the whole way. Alice is an inspirational speaker, a proud advocate for Early Years and a stunning developer of resources… but not my first choice for chauffeur! The tighter the bends, the faster she went, as we hurled towards Loch Fyne with Paul in the front reacting like many of the characters from the Angels’ Share (as those of you that have been reading this blog for any time must already  know, one of my favourite films, and one for which he has recently won the Scottish Bafta).

The conference focused on leadership and home learning, and how we try to create an environment where we better engage with children through their families, and perhaps understand the issues many families face which affects their ability to succeed.  Paul gave a very personal story which illustrated such points, and I can always regale an audience with a few stories, not to mention examples of our mistakes and new ideas we are testing. It led to one of the audience suggesting that I might be a suitable candidate for Fascinating Aida. (Yes please, but only for one night!)

Home Learning is a key strategic objective at LEYF, and it forces us to think and respond quite differently. It is not as many people think purely a matter of setting up some learning bags or arranging for some cameras to go home; it really demands that staff set the family at the very heart of the community, weaving a multi-generational approach into their work and (like Bruner’s spiral curriculum) blending all of these factors into a mutual learning culture.

LEYF’s Home Learning strategy also relies on us getting really good at casual pedagogical conversation: those random but regular opportunities to chat with parents, whilst explaining what and how the child is learning in a way that makes sense and encourages shared interest. It is then that such foundations are built on and further supported by nursery activities, community activities and home learning resources. It is a new journey and one recently celebrated by parents at our Eastbury Children’s Centre nursery, who positively delighted when staff recently sent a little piece of the nursery home. It’s the only way, even if you have to first take the road to Inveraray with Alice at the wheel!

So, Home Learning is definitely the way forward: it adds value to the core service, whilst at the dsame time building in additional social impact.

I am breaking my rule of one blog post a week, because tweeting simply cannot give credibility to the confusion in the media elicited by the annual childcare cost survey.

The survey tells us what parents pay for childcare. It does not address either the actual cost to provide childcare or who should bear that cost. ’Nurseries are more expensive than public schools’ scream the headlines. Guys, nurseries cost what they cost.

Nurseries are not great generators of profit. LEYF does not cream off a load of profit so we can all be paid more than 900 times that of our lowest staff member like Sir Terry Leahy at Tesco. Nurseries do not operate like banks with the Chancellor crawling to Brussels to justify bankers keeping large bonuses. If the £600m about to be spent at RBS on bonuses for bankers were available to the childcare sector, we could double the number of two year olds getting their free 15 hours, or even double the time to 30 hours for those already using the nurseries. (A much better use of money in my humble opinion.)

Here is the reality: nursery costs are made up of 77% staff cost; the rest is rent, food, equipment, training and the unexpected. There is little opportunity for vast profits; and in our case, as a social enterprise, any profit we make is reinvested to keep fees low and quality high, support parents in difficulty, develop training opportunities for apprentices and increase our contribution to local communities.

No one complains about what schools cost. That is because we have agreed as tax payers to fund education. If we had to pay for our education, we would be paying the same as private school fees (which is the real cost of education). The question therefore is this: should we pay for childcare as part of the education offer??

Mainland Europe has decided to do this, and pays up to 100% of the costs. It would certainly make my life easier trying to keep fees low and quality high if the UK would follow suit. But what about the free offer I hear you say? We have been complaining for nearly 10 years that the free offer is insufficient. The NDNA pointed out in a recent report that members are making a loss of £500 per year for every child in receipt of free nursery entitlement hours. In London a childcare place costs at least £6 per hour for high quality childcare. The Government pays anything between £3.66 and £4.80. Even those of us without a C in GCSE Maths can do the sums: yep, a shortfall of £1.80 per hour per child. Add that up and it soon becomes a big gap.

The issue of what childcare costs will never go away until we have a big discussion and decide whether we as tax payers should fund the central costs of childcare. It’s certainly worth the outlay, and the return on such an investment is great. For those taxpayers who see having children as a private matter, then let me remind them it is these children who will be funding their pensions during a long old age.

This week LEYF hosted a visit for our Minister Elizabeth Truss MP.  We were pleased to welcome her and ensured she spent time in the Baby Room with 14 under 2s and 5 members of staff!  As expected, the children were all complete angels, behaving like well-briefed civil servants; chuckling, smiling and engaging the Minister and her small team with aplomb.  Of course, what I actually wanted was them all crying, pooing and falling over to help us bring the critical issue of staff to child ratios to the fore; allowing our Minister to see first-hand how it would feel to play the role of a French auxiliary staff member trained to step in when there was a shortage of staff.

The Minister and I called truce on the ratios issue during the visit. We didn’t talk about it much, as we will never agree that even a flexible change is a good thing.  As far as I’m concerned, any such flexibility runs the risk of a slow shift from the norm to the present proposals, which will in turn then become custom and practice. Not only will this see all the issues raised, such as a decline in quality and the creation of a two-tier system, but for those most hard-hearted about the issue, we will see our funding based on staff costs. Less staff means less funding, and soon we will have gone from £6 to £5.09 and the trend of a downward spiral will continue. I support Penny Webb’s efforts and hope you read and sign the e-petition.

Ratios aside, the Minister is keen to raise the profile of the sector and understands that we need help to get the public to understand the importance of what we do and therefore raise the calibre of those wanting to work in the sector. We agreed that we need to change hearts and minds about the enormity of the role of Early Years in the future of society. I suggested that she focus her energy on that and create a dramatic and wide-ranging marketing campaign to push the notion further.  The underlying issue of funding never quite goes away though, because it really is at the heart of the matter.

To my delight Elizabeth Truss was interested in Men in Childcare (MiC) and so I invited her to meet the men who are part of the London Men in Childcare Network. I also asked her to read the LEYF report.

The inaugural MiC meeting itself was on Thursday 28 February, and a very happy and uplifting experience it was too (although rather odd to be one of four women in a room full of male practitioners).  It highlighted a number of issues; not least the role we have as women to ensure that all female practitioners are open and willing to fully welcome male colleagues, not just as token males but as serious contributors to the sector. I hope the Minister comes and speaks at a national conference LEYF is keen to support later in the year.

My final concern as regards the Minister was that we consider how we manage her demand that all future staff come with A to C in Maths and English.  This is not a fool-proof means of ensuring we get staff with a basic grounding in literacy and numeracy, so we must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  We have some way to go before we can recruit staff with the right attitude and experience, and to get staff with the proposed A to C qualifications as well may be a huge hurdle.  I am also worried about losing otherwise great apprentices that have the ability but not the suggested entry qualifications.  In this respect, the Minister was very impressed with our apprenticeship programme and its positive contribution to creating an engaged and high quality workforce in the Early Years sector; many LEYF apprentices have moved up the ranks and so help to maintain our fantastically low staff turnover.

The Minister’s suggestion on qualifications is very much a double edged sword and we in the sector need to help her find a solution that suits us all. Remember what happened in the past when Tony Blair announced the need for 100,000 new staff? In order to achieve that we watered down the NVQ to the point that in the end we had a qualification that was more trouble than it was worth.  With Nutbrown having considered all these issues and announced the need for a new full and relevant qualification, we need to see that happens.  Consultation on this very matter was launched this week by the Department of Education; Consultation on the criteria for Early Years Education qualifications (Level 3). I hope you all find time to respond.

My message to the Minister (apart from relinquishing the proposed changes to ratios) is to launch a national conversation about the importance of Early Years to the future of our society – in fact the very time she should copy the French. It would also help her ambition to raise both our and her profile. A possible win win all round, I would say.

UK politicians and policy makers oscillate between venerating Europe and the US. We all now know of our Minister Elizabeth Truss‘ current fascination with early years education in France and Denmark, an attraction that perplexes many in both countries. From my recent trip to Paris, these individuals have confirmed that such a fascination is undeserved. However, right now the Minister’s eyes should travel further west and examine what is happening in the US.

The US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has decided that access to Early Years education is key to levelling the playing field for students of all backgrounds, and is keen to invest in universal early education for 1.85 million 4-year-olds. As he told Bloomberg Radio:

[If we don't do this], we’re playing catch-up from the start. The more we can increase access to early childhood education, make sure it’s high quality in reaching those children in communities who historically have been under served - that’s the best investment we can make.

He acknowledges the political challenge, namely that early childhood education is a long-term investment – longer than the terms of most political appointees and elected officials – and that the dividends will be reaped long after President Barack Obama has left the White House. Nonetheless, he has the far-sightedness to want to do things differently in order to do the best thing:

…not just for our children and our families, but ultimately to strengthen our country. The path to the middle class goes straight through America’s classrooms.

Like the UK Coalition Government, President Obama is building on some of the legacy of the previous incumbent George W. Bush, who in 2002 developed No Child Left Behind (NCLB), designed to elevate education as the “great civil rights issue of our time“, and also challenge “the soft bigotry of low expectations”.

Despite concerns about NCLB and its laser focus on test-based accountability with unrealistic and hard to manage targets, it is giving the President and members of Congress an opportunity to demonstrate a bipartisan effort around which they can move forward together. It all feels very familiar, does it not?

However, maybe we should demand the same level of foresight illustrated by Mr. Duncan from our own politicians, and develop a more cross party set of long term objectives for our children and our nation’s future with a mandate from the public.

Perhaps, we can ask President Obama to loan Mr. Duncan to the UK with a packet of Haribo in his pocket, which he could share with our politicians as he helped them agree a long-term properly thought out early year’s investment proposition.

Such an effort would certainly guarantee I donate Curly Wurlys for a job well done.

Valentine’s Day in Paris. Yep, there I was. Not arm in arm with my beloved, but trudging across the otherwise romantic capital of France visiting nurseries. Part of a group of nursery providers, we had arranged at our own cost to hear directly from the French on how they are successfully able to manage ratios of 1 to 6 babies and 1 to 10 toddlers.

Maybe they are as turbo-charged as we read about.  Remember we are still smarting from being told that French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano and French Children Don’t Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman, or French Children Don’t Talk Back by Catherine Crawford.  This is of course nonsense, as we have plenty of French children across all LEYF nurseries and they follow the same patterns of behaviour as any other child; and not all their mothers are a slim size 8.

However, as we crisscrossed a cold and wet Paris to visit nurseries, the real picture emerged: the French were charming and pleasant. Between us we visited a cadre of day care centres made up of social enterprise, public and private nurseries. LEYF already had a good relationship with Mouvement des entrepreneurs sociaux (the French Association for Social Enterprises), and the co-ordinator had arranged a most interesting timetable including meeting the equivalent Head of Early Years for Paris. Very much the Entente Cordiale.

The findings: the French do not like the ratios; it limits their opportunities to educate children under the age of 3 years. The nurseries were spotless and the principle of cleanliness next to godliness rules. Lots of plastic and safety surfaces, both indoors and outside. Strict restrictions operate around creative play: no sand indoors or outdoors; limited water play and limited usage of food in play; for example no spaghetti swamps, or vegetables in the role play area.  Some child carers were trying to bathe their babies without water.   This is all part of the system they have created and embedded to manage the higher ratios.  Despite having access to a large number of support staff, they admitted to struggling with ratios and were left open-mouthed when they found out how we currently operate.

Paris has its own approach and is busy examining best practice examples. Their current objective is introducing non-stereotyped play.  They admire the EYFS as setting out good principles of practice. Of course, we met some creative leaders as well as signing up the first European member of the London Network of Men in Childcare.

Fees are much more complex because of the tax and employer subsidies. Parents pay less but that is because the state pays the correct cost of a place.  None of your average £3.66 doled out to UK providers!  They were looking at rates of between 9 and 11 euros per hour.

Despite the low fees, however, French mothers are up in arms at the moment, as they are short 500,000 places to meet their needs.  La Loterie, ca suffit is the call. The French birth rate is one of the highest in Europe and 84% of mothers work. I met some campaigners who demonstrated their fury with Nadine Morano and her 2010 Act, which introduced flexible ratios as a way of putting 100,000 more childcare places into circulation at no cost to the state. The new Government placated parents with a National Consultation which announces its findings this week; an outcome I will be very interested to hear.

So, when you go and see Les Mis and hear the rousing song “Do you hear the people sing“, consider that many French mothers and childcare practitioners are not singing either.

The Francis Report on the scandals of Stafford Hospital was published last week, and unless you have never been in the care of the NHS, you will you not be surprised by some of the findings. I speak as an ex nurse, a patient, a friend and relative of patients in a variety of hospitals as recently as last week. Sadly, everyone I know can confirm evidence of poor caring and sloppy nursing care. I have yet to find fault with the emergency services, but it’s recovery on the wards – the very place which can make the greatest contribution to the patient’s recovery - that so often seems to slip. Florence Nightingale said:

Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.

What would she have made of just one example of the unkindness my dear husband experienced recently I wonder? Recovering from a very traumatic operation, he got up one night to ask a nurse if she would move a particularly loud machine from the ward into the corridor, so he and the other patients could sleep and recover. ‘What about us? We have to put up with the noise out here.’ was her retort! It was never moved.

As Florence would have said:

If you knew how unreasonably sick people suffer from reasonable causes of distress, you would take more pains about all these things.

The Francis Report is full of infuriating jargon, weasel words and failure to stand up to the sacred cow (the NHS). People have indicated that laying blame would lead to scapegoating. Can you imagine this happening in any other sector? We would all be hung out to dry!

There are numerous interwoven problems that develop such culture that has, according to Jeremy Hunt MP, ‘crushed the compassion of doctors and nurses’. This is emblematic of a leadership that is so far removed, no one actually knows what is happening at the core; obsessive targets and a huge emphasis on qualifications leaves nurses thinking that plumping a pillow or having a friendly chat with a lonely worried patient is not their responsibility. We have all heard comments about why feeding patients, changing wet sheets or making someone comfortable is no longer the job of the qualified nurse. I remember the days when the wards were ruled by a rod of iron by the Nursing Sister, and we as nurses would be absolutely slaughtered if the ward was not pristine, the patients uncomfortable or the flowers not standing to military attention. It appears we have slipped to the other end of the continuum.

Now wake up Early Years colleagues and observe the parallels: if we go down the route of ’the better the qualification the more two year olds‘, I predict we will see the same decline in care. Will children wait longer to have their nappies changed, noses wiped, or made comfortable? Will we have to cut short long and chatty lunches? Will we have reduced time to play, talk, cuddle and provide the loving engagement which is every child’s right? I suspect the answer to these questions will be yes. Never forget, care is the very backbone of education.

Be warned: look carefully at all elements of the More Great Childcare Report; open your eyes and see the implications. And once again, listen to Florence Nightingale on this matter:

Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head… how can I provide for the right thing to be always done?

Would you want us to descend to the level of inhumanity seen at Stafford Hospital? Consider this thoughtfully when replying to the consultation. The consultation document is called ‘Consultation on Early Education and Childcare Staff Deployment’ and the submission form you need to complete can be found here.