At the recent summer NDNA conference, Professor Kathy Sylva revealed the findings of a research on parental engagement which she led with NDNA members (including some of our LEYF nurseries, as I am always keen to find ways to improve our parental engagement). The last piece of substantial research conducted in this area was done by Desforges and Aboucher in 2003. They had focused much more on needy parents and those parents who felt disempowered, lacked confidence and were failing to stimulate their children’s cognition and communication. These were generally parents with low aspirations for children’s future.

Since the expansion of the universal offer (which has a take–up of over 90%) and the increase of women in the work place, the range of parents coming to nursery has changed substantially. Nowadays, we have parents attending from all walks of life, and that brings with it changes in attitude and expectation. This was the very premise of this recent research, and I was keen to hear about the experiences of NDNA members across England with regards to a more modern understanding of parental engagement.

The first finding was that unlike Desforges, the largest and most powerful group of parents in this research were the well-educated, professional time poor parents. Unsurprisingly, however, the signs of satisfied and engaged parents – no matter what class, creed or social background – were feeling happy and content and able to have trust and confidence in the staff. According to the research, engaged parents have positive and reciprocal relationships, which allow open and grown-up communication, meaning parents can make suggestions for improvements but also listen to advice from staff; parents are equally willing to share information and work in partnership with the setting, are open to suggestions and remain keen to contribute.

The barriers to achieving this level of harmony focused a lot on the calibre of staff: parents were not pushing for more qualifications, but they did want staff who were mature, and with a level of emotional intelligence. They valued experience and an ability to communicate in ways that avoided jargon and unfriendly language. (Note to us all revising policies and procedures in light of the new EYFS!)

Interestingly, I think that was the point made in the Nutbrown Report; that higher level training and qualifications are more reliable ways of helping staff reach this level of competence (although, of course, only if they are taught by up to date, knowledgeable and interesting tutors).

What bothered staff was dealing with irritated or tired parents, and especially those who could not see the whole picture in the nursery and wanted action that was only self-serving. There was an acknowledgement that we needed training to improve some of the staff’s poor social skills which proves a barrier to communication. Interestingly, some of our LEYF staff recently completed the PEAL training as a baseline for understanding this critical relationship with parents; an experience that proved most worthwhile and so will now be built into the induction of all staff.

In summary, the research pointed to a number of solutions, and recommended that staff and settings:

1. Are flexible. In other words, humane. Rules can be broken and chicken licken survived. Let’s not become another version of the computer says no.
2. Communicate in many ways. There is a theory that to ensure we embed the message we need to use seven means of communication (diaries, posters, letters, texts, e-mails, etc…) It might remove the constant whine “I put a notice on the door but they never read anything…”
3. Do not under-estimate the power of good staff management, beginning with a robust induction process and then having supervision, appraisals and training as a continual activity.
4. Develop some assertiveness training to teach staff how to behave in a way that increases their confidence. Let’s avoid either the shrinking violet or the cocky madam.
5. Be creative when it comes to emotional intelligence, finding as many ways as possible (such as coaching and mentoring) to help staff  form, secure and manage relationships with parents. This will also benefit relationship with staff and improve the workplace.
6. Check policies and procedures are robust and clear, but perhaps most importantly help strengthen the relationship with parents. (Don’t just use them as a rule book.)
7. Use your website as an information tool so in the quiet of the night parents can log in and read about key childhood issues, from toilet training to language acquisition. (Things that matter and can really benefit the child’s happiness and development.)
8. Think carefully about ways parents can engage, whether through management committees or parents forums. (Although a small note of caution here, as poorly managed forums can be a nightmare.)

Ultimately, if we are to get the important role of local nurseries out into the wide world, then parents are our best advocates. And so we need parents who are confident and empowered, along with staff who are secure about why and how they help parents balance high aspirations for their children with the importance of celebrating childhood.

I am very pleased to be able to represent LEYF as a member of Professor Cathy Nutbrown’s Expert Panel. The Panel is examining the standard and range of qualifications for those working in Early Years settings.  It’s a hot topic and one that needs calm, rational and measured consideration.  It’s also an issue that powerfully demonstrates that rhetoric and good intentions don’t always translate well into practice, and no solution will be perfect.  And it further requires a steady and pragmatic hand which Cathy certainly has.

Before anyone gets excited about being called an expert, the actual reality of being on a panel is that you are expected to do some work and research an issue or two.  At the last meeting, I agreed to examine the question of whether it is necessary for those entering the profession to have a grade C in GCSE Maths and English. In order to do it justice, I sought some support from my friend Sue, who put her considerable research skills to good use finding out whether or not having these grades leads to better teaching of the subjects, higher thinking skills and greater ability to apply abstract concepts in a range of situations. I also needed to know that if having a Grade C was essential, could we get everyone up to that standard through Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and would it create barriers to potential apprentices, trainees and other staff from diverse communities.

What we found was that although research from OECD and EPPE tells us that higher qualified staff offer a more reliable predictor of better quality – with a more positive impact on children’s future learning and development as a result – there is little data to securely support the correlation between the levels of formal qualifications in literacy and numeracy among Early Years practitioners and children’s achievements. The best we could find was the Millennium Cohort Study which stressed the links between quality of provision in a setting, the level of qualifications of the staff and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) analysed by subject, concluding that…

Continued priority needs to be given to strengthening the non-graduate early years workforce, who continue to make up the majority of staff. All practitioners need to have a clear grasp of how children’s understanding of mathematics develops; they need to be comfortable with mathematical language and able to support children’s play as outlined in the previous section on effective mathematical pedagogy.” Milleniun Cohort Study

The most interesting findings emphasised something our tutor for Key Skills previously said, namely how the psychological barrier people have created about Maths is often the greater hurdle to them getting a grade C.  I recently saw this in action among a group of otherwise experienced LEYF staff who needed to get a grade C in Maths as part of their degrees; the level of anxiety this generated, despite us providing specialist workshops, was such that even a chocolate fest could not reduce the waves of panic in the room. (Not even the promise of our favourite Curly Wurly!) The lack of enthusiasm for Maths, often acquired from poor teaching, creates a self perpetuating cycle which flies in the face of the Williams Review(DCSF 2008a) which found that…

One of the distinctive features that support high quality mathematical learning includes practitioners’ enthusiasm for, understanding of, and confidence in, mathematics.” Williams Review

For those of us running nursery businesses, the lack of mathematical confidence has greater implications, given the need to grasp Maths in action through an ability to understand and manage occupancy, staff deployment, pricing and basic income and expenditure; all critical skills needed to keep the business going.  (Sadly, I have seen far too many nurseries slip into disaster because of the manager’s inability to read the numbers.) And I know this statement will send Hitchcock shivers down the spines of some LEYF staff, in fact I’m sure most would much rather sit through the Director’s Cut of Psycho in a dark room on their own than do the books.

But if we see our job in Early Years as being the educators of the youngest children, and therefore needing to inculcate in them positive attitudes about Maths and literacy (especially Maths), then we have to look at the bigger picture and the costs to society. The CBI Education and Skills Survey 2011 reported that employers found widespread weaknesses in the core skills of their employees, with almost half reporting problems with literacy and numeracy. KPMG estimates that the cost to the public purse each year from failure to master basic numeracy skills is up to £2.4 billion.

So what to do? Luckily I am not Cathy Nutbrown, and my task was to merely present ideas and information, whilst Cathy gets to analyse and draw a conclusion.  Still, she is ably assisted by our Civil Servants, who I am sure have all the relevant C grades. In the meantime, I suggest we all ensure we have regular planned Maths activities, lots of Maths in the routine and that we practise our timetables while we do our Pilates.  If all fruit fails then watch Dara O Briain’s School of Hard Sums (formerly called ‘Dara O Briain’s University of Practical Mathematics’) where humour and numbers mix. Why not? Have a laugh, do a sum!

The National Audit Office report  Delivering the free entitlement to education for three- and four-year-olds has sent the press into pessimism overdrive, telling us the £1.9bn spending on provision of the free entitlement by local authorities in 2011-12 (providing  places for  831,800 in 28,630 settings) was a waste of  money, with apparently no measurable benefits to children.

Absolute poppycock! The report actually said that it was probably too soon to tell, adding how there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage but this has not carried on into Primary School. Dare I say it’s maybe the hallowed Primary Schools that need addressing; or perhaps we need a serious conversation about what we as a country want for our children?

Unlike our contemporaries in Europe, we have never fully considered what we want for our small children; instead we simply react to external reports and anecdotal observations. What does measurement actually tell us if we are measuring the wrong or non-compatible things with the same set of measurements?  Apparently, we want children to be happy, whilst at the same time ‘school ready’ and successful.

Perhaps, someone should listen to the many commentators suggesting that maybe schools are not the right place for children as young as three, and that if they were in nurseries for longer (like their apparently more successful counterparts in Europe) there would be even more improvement, sustained for much longer.

In addition to improvement, the report looked at the hoary chestnut of funding, unsurprisingly concluding that the Department and its partners do not yet sufficiently understand the relationship between this and local performance – including how far variations in rates paid to providers reflect legitimate local factors – to be confident that funding arrangements are efficient. For example, certain local authorities use funding to provide limited incentives for providers to improve quality, despite finding no links with take-up rates or quality. It’s no surprise to see the report noting how funding formulae are complex, yet despite this, transparency and fairness of funding was improving. (Although funding remained insufficient to cover the costs for some providers, nursery schools received a much higher level of payment than the rest of the sector.)

The report concluded that the Department for Education (DfE) needs to address variations in take-up when it comes to accessing high-quality provision – along with the impact on attainment in later years – if it is to achieve value for money and get the best possible return for children from its annual investment of some £1.9 billion. I vote this should become a central strategy to the current work being done and the reviews being undertaken, so that every DfE activity weaves together to deliver a coherent service, one which parents can both understand and buy into without all the confusion that is raised by so many emotive headlines.

I would caution that if we are to truly measure the longer term benefit, we must remember what we are measuring. Our children (including the two-year-olds) are babies and must be allowed to enjoy their childhood.  Value for money is important, of course, but if we are showing improvement already let’s start from that premise; measure the right things in the right way.  What we want is for children to have a happy childhood; Early Years is a crucial step towards that, but not a stick to be beaten with if children do less well in Primary Schools.

Mr Gove, I urge you again to take more interest in the Early Years and stop assuming that Primary Schools are perfect.  Be as critical of them as you are of Secondary Schools, and let’s have a more in depth look at transition. Remember what this report says: there has been improvement in the Foundation Stage.

This week the chancellor announced that the government will extend the free entitlement of 15 hours of nursery education to every disadvantaged two-year-old over the next four years. This expansion will be funded by an additional investment of around £300 million per year so that by the end of 2015 about  40 per cent of all two year olds (130,000) will benefit from the new entitlement.

Good job for Mr. Osborne and a possible sop to many disenchanted women who are bearing quite a lot of the brunt of the ongoing economic slump.

The arrival of more two years olds under the free offer may be good news for many settings, especially as the grant for two year olds currently covers the real costs of provision, unlike the grant for the three and four year olds.

The rationale for providing places for those two year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds must be predicated on the research, showing how good quality childcare can improve the child’s life chances and pay dividends to the child, the family and society as a whole. It’s clearly an investment with a serious social return. Sarah Teather MP tells us that

Our priority is to increase social mobility by helping children from the poorest backgrounds in their earliest years. High quality early education is the key to making a difference early on in a child’s life. It’s crucial for their healthy development and means they’re not falling behind before they have even started primary school.

Sarah Teather MP

However, the most powerful words here are good quality. There is also a raft of research that demonstrates what good quality needs to look like, only it’s not always either interpreted or applied consistently. Ofsted still find that the lowest quality childcare remains in the poorest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It’s shockingly unacceptable.

One aspect of quality is the ability to understand the developmental stages of children.  For two year olds this means recognizing and celebrating the twoness of two.  There has been an inclination to overly focus on education to the detriment of care (yes I know the two are integral, but I fear not everyone knows that!), pushing small children into an inappropriate and unsuitable curriculum or environment.  Two year olds are just recent babies, and this needs to be considered as we welcome them into our nurseries and help them become independent and confident little people. It’s a skilled and sensitive role for those adults working with this group of children, and one not to be underestimated.

The experiences children receive in their early years are crucial to overall brain development. When a child has an experience, connections are formed between brain cells; so the cells are dependent on experience to create these connections. After eight months a child exposed to a nurturing and stimulating environment may already have 1,000 trillion connections created; so again these connections physically grow and develop the brain.

As such, it is primarily the early experiences and warm and consistent parents, who cuddle and talk to their children and provide fun learning experiences, that largely determine the basic strength and function of the brain’s wiring system and so promote healthy brain development for their children. By contrast, babies who do not receive consistent and caring responses to their cries, or those whose cries are met with abuse, develop brain connections to prepare them to cope in that environment. As a result their ability to learn and respond to nurturing and kindness may be impaired.

The brain organizes through a ‘use it or lose it’ process: the brain eliminates or strengthens connections in an effort to become more efficient. So, experiences that are repeated frequently lead to brain connections that are retained. It is Repetition That Makes Strong Connections. And consistency is key. The brain feels comfortable when it knows what to expect. When children learn, through repetition, that a parent (or care provider) will be there for them when needed, they can relax and feel safe.

In short, providing loving interaction, adequate amounts of sleep, healthy nutrition, time playing outdoors, physical activity, lots of creative play and exploration contributes to a child with a healthy brain.

To further explore this crucial aspect of development in the early years, we are starting a working group of staff at LEYF who care for and really understand two year olds.  We have already learnt from the Two Year Old pilot that we need to set simple benchmark assessment, help people revisit their understanding of what it means to be two and figure out a way of engaging parents to better understand and support their two year olds at home. But we cannot stop there.

If you have any thoughts or specific experiences in relation to this topic, please do add your comments below.

Last week I went to the Globe to see my favourite Shakespearean comedy; Much Ado About Nothing.  It was a sterling performance and the wit and banter between Beatrice and Benedict was much appreciated by the very diverse audience.

Still buzzing from the experience, I boarded the train home and, as I began to read the evening papers, fell off the high left by Much Ado into the dark, guilt-ridden space more often occupied by Irish playwrights. The Irish can do guilt big time.  Combine our history and Catholicism and we have set the stage for a guilt fest. But we may be outdone nowadays by the current guilt trip that modern research is placing on parents; and in particular mothers.

It does not take much to make a woman feel guilty. We feel guilty about something from the minute we get up to last thing at night. But nothing can compare to the quality of guilt that wraps around us when we become a parent. So we are suckers for those who can confuse and confound with snippets of research which suggests we are doing some level of damage, especially those parents who choose childcare. Woe betide them!

In the past becoming a parent – and motherhood especially – was seen as a fundamental part of life.  Most people had children, some chose not to and others were tragically not afforded the choice.  The typically central role undertaken by a mother came with varying levels of support from husbands, partners, boyfriends, family, friends and neighbours.  It was also accepted that having children was generally a good thing for everyone, not least because we would have people working to pay our retirement pensions.

These days, with the help of modern science, we are trying to turn parenting into an art form; a qualification, a set of behaviours, skills and attitudes that will ensure our children don’t just thrive and grow up reasonably stable and happy, but will be propelled onto the milky way of success by highly engaged and confident mothers who always know and do the right thing.

In September, UNICEF told British parents that we were hopeless. In her article in the Evening Standard last month, Xbox children? Don’t just blame the parents, Rachel Johnson commented that after coping over the long summer…

… instead of someone patting us on the back and saying ‘well done’ for holding it together (I keep waiting for that to happen), we are told by Unicef that British parents have lost the plot. We are locked in a “compulsive consumption cycle”, working all hours to buy our children “gadgets and branded clothes” as compensation for all the time we’re not spending with them.”

She continued..

How I wish that Unicef had used its funding instead to come up with a sensible, layered report that explained why households with two working parents have resorted to consumer goods as a substitute for spending time with each other. But that would involve an examination of the growth-led, unchecked credit bubble that gave us overpriced houses, trapped buyers in unaffordable mortgages, created a childcare market where fees outpaced Eton College’s, and led the British to work among the longest hours in Europe. Almost all the parents I know do their best but they are a bit tired.”

October produced more research which led Viv Groksop in the Observer to suggest Why parents should stop feeling guilty if they can’t devote time to their toddlers. She was referring to the debate among academics about findings from neuro-scientists on the biological development of children’s brains which was leading to a confused state for parents; mothers especially did not know what to do for the best.  As a consequence, they were being subjected to ridiculous levels of pressure to get things right, leading to unwarranted anxiety and guilt.  In her article, Groksop challenged the interpretation of some of this research which demonstrates the impact on the brain of poor attachment and stimulation at an early age.

The premise of the neuro scientific argument is that poor nurturing of babies, especially continual failure to comfort children in stressful situations, leads to high levels of the stress hormone Cortisol remaining in the child’s body.  This in turn can do sufficient damage to the child’s neuro-endocrine networks to affect their mental and physical health in adulthood.  Dr Aric Sigman added to the debate with a more explanatory article, Mother Superior? The Biological Effects of Daycare (The Biologist, Vol 58 No 3). He recognised the contextual sensitivities of examining the biological impact of childcare, which he believes has been challenged so far within the prism of adult sexual politics and women’s rights that the impact on the child has been squashed.

At this point, I have to declare an interest as someone who has worked with children for over 30 years in a whole range of settings, and now CEO of LEYF. I therefore must try and be even-handed. Of course, I want to say that childcare can do no wrong, but realise that being with other children all day is bound to affect children’s stress.

Dr Sigman goes on to argue that poor attachment, insensitive adults, lack of biological fathers and the age of the child are all factors in stressing children.  But what Dr Sigman has yet to show conclusively – and he accepts there are counter arguments, especially those questioning the transient nature of raised Cortisol levels – is whether stress levels caused by increased Cortisol in partiular has long-term, negative biological implications on the fast growing brain. (80% of the brain is formed by the time the child is 3 years old.) In the meantime, parents continue to feel guilty about the way they are parenting their children, and childcare continues to support those half of all British mothers who go out to work before their child is 12 months old (OECD 2011).

Groksop quotes sociologist Ellie Lee from the University of Kent, who says…

It’s making motherhood into a miserable enterprise when it should be fun and life-enhancing. Also, there is no culture of supporting parents, so they end up thinking, ‘If I don’t do this for my child, no one will’.”

So while academics continue to research the impact of childcare on children, and the Government tries to sort out an economic climate that is squeezing working parents, we might do well to assume this is not Much Ado about Nothing. So let’s use what we know to do the best for parents and children; improve our adult levels of engagement and sensitivities, keep the high ratio we need to ensure this happens, review the environment and start thinking seriously about whether three year olds should be in school.  In fact, only last week I heard that some schools would now be taking two years olds.

Let’s support parents to become part of the debate and get them to back childcare; encourage them to value their own judgement, the same judgement which led them to confidently place their children in a nursery to begin with, and go public with their support for childcare.  Our job is ultimately to help parents follow their own natural instincts: to love their children, converse with them, sing to them and have a little fun by just watching them be children.  The final debate is then less a matter of money, politics or propaganda and more one of time, energy and inspiration for all parents (with guilt finally seen to exit stage left).

Chatting to my sister in the car the other evening, we were whished into silence by an indignant five year old in the back seat who, demanding our attention, said

“Remember the Fish Wish and the Government…”

The what? The who?  “Yes,” said Rory with all the authority he could muster, “the Government says to listen to children, not like Elizabeth’s parents in the Fish Wish!”

So, the just issued and widely supported daily checklist (part of a larger report by liberal thinktank CentreForum) had been picked up by a bright five year old – either from CBBC or reading the Times on his way to school.  My sister, rather quietly admitted that she had not been promoting the five a day guide, so he had not heard of it from her.  The Government’s marketing machine is clearly alive and well, and permeating the brains of our youngest citizens!  It also had the secondary impact of getting us both to properly read and reconsider the five a day:

1. Read to your child for 15 minutes
2. Play with your child on the floor for 10 minutes
3. Talk to your child for 20 minutes with the TV off
4. Adopt positive attitudes towards your child and praise frequently
5. Give your child a nutritious diet.

Phew, I thought.  I think I did all those things when they were young and I breast fed them; they should be paragons – but no chance!

However, the checklist is probably a good plan.  It will no doubt annoy the earth mothers and loose women, but actually for many parents (and I meet a lot), it should bring some small but welcome relief; so many of them are desperately in the dark about what to do, not least as mastering the skills of feeding, changing and sleeping takes all their energy.

At LEYF, we often have discussions with parents whose youngest children have reached three months – and they ask, “what shall I do now??”  As a result, we have begun to work with colleagues in Scotland (Alice Sharp and her team) to roll out lovely activities called Tickle and Giggle; proving so popular with parents wanting to learn and do at the same time, especially as many of them have no reference point (having had little or no previous contact with children), and so are a bit lost.

Many people (a surprisingly large number) think all babies need is care, food and cuddles, but no talking or playing: how many parents have you seen pushing their forward facing prams with their mobiles or earphones glued to their heads?  Huge numbers of three year-olds now have TVs in their bedrooms and go to bed to a DVD, lonesome in their little bubbles of consumerist isolation and fantasy; some households turn the TV on in the morning and don’t turn it off again until they go to bed – try competing with that level of distraction!  Is it any wonder then that we have a growing population of children from all backgrounds, classes and creed with significant speech and language problems?

If all it took to solve the world’s parents’ problems was a ‘Five A Day’ checklist, one quietly nudging us into behaving differently, then we could have a big party and get on with preparing the next successful checklist – one for managing the trials and tribulations of coping with teenagers…

So, back to the Fish Wish and that sometimes small, quiet voice telling us to listen to children a little more.  Maybe we should; definitely.

I read with a sinking feeling, an article in the Telegraph March 2011 entitled “Parents who shun fairytales miss chance to teach children morality“.  In essence, they were quoting a report (based on a new book by Sally Goddard Blythe) that found modern parents were no longer reading fairy stories and nursery rhymes to their children because they were too violent or full of negative stereotypes.

I was not surprised about nursery rhymes, since we have noticed that many of our parents don’t know the old classic rhymes, and so we have been trying to readdress this with story sacks and song boxes.  Still, their ignorance was not a response to violence or negative stereotyping, rather they had simply not learned them at their own mother’s knee.

I was deeply disappointed about the state of fairy stories – books that are a must in any nursery box.  Fearful, that maybe this view had permeated our own organisation – or staff had been on a course which dictated an end to reading fairy stories – I randomly rang our nurseries and spoke with whoever answered the phone.  To my great relief, the response was a resounding “of course fairy stories and nursery rhymes are read and enjoyed at LEYF”.  In fact, I was reassured that…

…fairy stories are a popular choice by all children, who like them because they have a straightforward story structure, lots of repetition, fun, excitement and morality very clearly outlined in black and white.”

According to Jean Hudson, Manager of our Queensborough Community Nursery (one of our three officially Outstanding settings), they also “bring romance into children’s lives.”

On the subject of violence, Judy at Luton Street suggested there is more violence in the DVDs many children watch, often alone on TVs in their bedrooms, than stories read in the cosy confines of the nursery – cuddled-up next to friends, repeated often and with excitement by an enthusiastic storyteller, led by a supportive and familiar staff member.  I was equally glad to discover they were all using the original, unexpurgated versions rather than the often more popular and saccharine Disney ones.

On the way out of Head Office, I ran into a group of staff and children from Bessborough on their way back from a trip to a local park, and asked them the same question.  A similar reply, but also a reminder that fairy stories have a great deal of material for drama – something children use a lot, as a successful means of extending and stretching their imagination.  A salutary parting comment was that parents do their children a disservice by wrapping them in cotton wool: in the end children have to learn that life is not always fair and happy; and so children should not be protected from this but helped to manage it.

So fairy stories are alive and well at LEYF and are enjoyed day to day by the 1700 children we support every year.  They remain a crucial element of our curriculum, and continue to be a good way of supporting language development, learning about right and wrong whilst extending the imagination.

Elsewhere, real world romance was well and truly alive at the wedding of Mansukh’s son, where the boy got his girl and they agreed to live together happily ever after.  A key member of our Head Office Finance Department (with me below), Mansukh (or Mr Shah as he is known to everyone) invited me and the rest of the team to celebrate his proud moment, as he watched his eldest son, an accountant, marry a very pretty school teacher.  Looking every part the Indian Maharajah, we counted on Mansukh’s good humour, as we moved among a sea of colourful saris playing a game of spot the accountant; using all the popular stereotypes, we tried to count how many people were in Finance.  Tunde (below, right) won!

The Department for Education and the Department of Health have published the Government’s vision for the foundation years.  In their own words…

It is designed to describe the Government’s vision to everyone who commissions, leads and delivers services for mothers and fathers during pregnancy and for very young children, to the age of five.

Specifically, this vision includes:

• Families in the Foundation Years – a comprehensive overview of the Government’s vision for the system of services that supports parents, from pregnancy to age 5;
• Supporting Families in the Foundation Years – a downloadable PDF for commissioners and the Early Years workforce setting out how they can deliver on the Government’s vision for foundation years services;
• Foundation Years Evidence Pack – another downloadable PDF setting out the evidence underpinning the Government’s vision;
• www.foundationyears.org.uk – a parent friendly website with resources and links to help mothers and fathers who care for babies and young children.

Again, in their own words…

Taken together these documents constitute the Government’s response to the Graham Allen MP, Frank Field MP and Dame Clare Tickell recommendations where they relate to the foundation years.

These publications emphasise the vital role that skilled and knowledgeable professionals and strong leadership play across the foundation years.

This requires a framework of high-standard qualifications that meet the needs of employers, and equip early education professionals to support young children’s development.

I have to own up to playing my part in creating this new vision, as I sat on the Steering Group which produced the final document – an interesting experience, and I have to say also generally a very positive one.

As individual members of this group, we were invited because of our expertise in different areas, and so all had a view to share.  As a group, I was quite impressed with how we managed to suspend our personal passion and paranoia and got on with the job in hand.  The method of steering used was referred to as co-production (not an elegant phrase), but simply meant we would work alongside each other and as many others as possible to create the final document.  Perhaps more crucially, it promises an ongoing process that needs to be continued to make the document come to life.

In the report there are boxes which focus on areas that need more attention.  There are certainly areas that I feel need further attention and, in the spirit of co-production, I hope many people will offer their views, advice and research.

For example, I think we need to strengthen the importance of the under 2s, bearing in mind 2 year olds are little more than babies and so balance what we think they need.  I would also like to see much more explanation about the concept of school readiness, as this could be much mis-interpreted and fail to recognise the Froebellian principle, that childhood is a time in its own right (and so not pre anything), and that schools need to be just as ready as the children.  My view that children are better off in nurseries until they are at least five years does not always gain the support of colleagues, but I hold fast to the idea.

Elsewhere, I am delighted to see that qualifications are to be examined as part of a review led by Professor Cathy Nutbrown, ensuring practitioners access the right qualifications suitable for the task in hand – but realise this is no mean feat.  We have been tinkering with qualifications since 1992, with the introduction of the National Vocational Qualifications, and have never managed to satisfy everyone and keep costs low, and this tension will remain.  So good luck to Professor Nutbrown, and let’s hope there is enough co-production – involving everyone from apprentice to employer – to balance the response.

Finally, leadership needs some input.  At LEYF the graduate leadership initiative has worked well for us, with 40 staff recently completing their Foundation Degrees.  Like anything, much of what you learn is only as good as the teacher who teaches you, and so we need to keep our eye on quality and not all rush to offer the newest product because it brings gold and glitter.  In principle, I am keen to support the continuation of the graduate leader; I have yet to measure its impact with our staff, but anecdotally feel it has boosted their confidence and got them reflecting more.  One thing we must build into leading and managing programmes is some teaching about how to run a successful setting from a business perspective, as this very important strand rarely features.  Unpopular as this may be, without it we will soon be without nurseries to provide children with their Early Years care and education.

In summary, I hope people will make the time to read and properly digest the document, and then take up the offer to help co-produce the next set of policies which will shape the services we all provide.  In my view, the broader the contribution we all make, the more likely policy will need to reflect the views and needs of practitioners who will make it happen on the ground.

Our own apprentices are being introduced to policy reviews and ways of engaging from day one, and their understanding of the role of Government and policy makers is greater and more confident as a result.  This can surely only be a good thing, as the best policies are those designed from two perspectives; research and practice, interwoven into a coherent and effective, jargon-free set of activities and behaviour.

This week I went to visit Dara Hogan at Fledglings Nurseries, part of An Cosán, a community organisation and charity in Tallaght, Co Dublin.  I was accompanied by Heather Fernandez, our lead Research Associate on social franchising, scaling and replication, with Middlesex University.

The term franchising freaks many people out because they associate it with aggressive, profit-focused commercial growth like McDonalds. Instead, I like the opportunity it presents as a business model with the potential to help replicate good, socially enterprising nurseries across the UK.  In doing so, many more children would benefit, more quickly and effectively, and greater strides could be taken toward eradicating child poverty; hence our research.

It is also the shared view of Dara Hogan who I met on a Scaling Up programme run by the School of Social Entrepreneurs in January this year.  He has set up five nurseries in this deprived part of Dublin, on the basis that good quality Early Years can help mitigate some of the worst aspects of social deprivation and potential educational failure.   Like me, he thinks franchising may be a good model to speed up the dissemination of good nurseries and touch the lives of many more children, and so he is in the process of growing the nursery group.

The Irish are renowned for their friendliness and hospitality and this was very evident during our visit.  We were taxied around Dublin by Denis, who gave us a guide to each locality and pointed out a range of areas of interest from a political and social perspective.  He could compete with London’s best Black Cab drivers with his knowledge of heritage sites in central Dublin.

Our programme of visits was wide and varied, but each person gave generously of their time and engaged in a way that made us feel we had something to offer them – although at times I could see their puzzlement, as we tried to understand the different ways we design and support similar services.

The social problems of Dublin and London are not dissimilar; drugs and alcohol abuse, unemployment, poverty and emotional deprivation are the issues of the day, and the people we visited are looking for solutions that work just as we are, solutions that can be scaled up and measured to show a benefit, both now and in the future.

Our two day visit began in Tallaght with a visit was to Breda at Barnardos. She runs a Government funded childcare and family support programme in a building down a littered windswept alley.  Her passion and enthusiasm was palpable, and she could link to the work being done in the UK through her daughter – an educational psychologist in Southwark who had been challenging her to dump the notion of school readiness in favour of ready schools.  It initiated an interesting philosophical debate. She was keen on giving a voice to the practitioner, whilst also finding a way to support free childcare for more two year olds.  I was pleased to be able to say that we were going to develop this in the UK as a result of a successful pilot.  She introduced me to Maria Aarts and Marte Meo and was as shocked that I had not heard of her as I was when she told me that Irish Barnardos were not in anyway connected to the UK charity.

Our second visit was to a very modern, architect designed building which housed the Childhood Development Initiative.  We were welcomed with a pot of tea by Grainne Smith and her colleagues Marguerite and Tara.  They are part of a commissioning and evaluation team developing childcare initiatives, funded by government and matched charity funds. We had a lively conversation about evaluations and randomised control trials of organisations and services with a heavy emphasis on evaluating process.  I was particularly intrigued to hear this, as it’s something I am keen to develop as part of our multi-generational project.

After a lunch which included homemade scones, we spoke to Jean Courtney who confirmed the importance of business skills among childcare providers in all sectors, but especially in areas where the continued success of nurseries and family support services is particularly needed by children.

Our last visit took us into the centre of Dublin, where we had a tremendously animated conversation with Beth Fagan who runs the Parent Child Home Programme  at the National College of Ireland.  She was passionate about helping parents apply learning in their homes, so we know it changes their beliefs, behaviour and attitude, and pointed us in the direction of much new reading.  It also led to a proposal for her colleague Aoife, who heads up the CPD programme, that we try and apply the same thinking when it comes to making sure we better embed and measure action learning in childcare settings – so we know the training and support we offer practitioners is actually embedded and applied consistently to ultimately change behaviour (a philosophy already very much embedded in the LEYF approach to learning and development).

Dara rounded off the long and fascinating visit with a dinner prepared by his good wife Mary.  It made me realise why hospitality needs to be a core value of any organisation looking to reach out and make a difference to those who feel alienated and isolated.

Our second day was spent at An Cosán, the umbrella charity which incubated the Fledglings idea.  Its main service is to provide training at all levels for local people, with a real emphasis on opportunities and learning for local women – so they were very hot on community leadership and ways of empowering women to develop their confidence and abilities.  Once again, the day was punctuated by hospitality and kindness – and more scones!  We learned a lot more about the importance of talking and extending ideas, as I had some passionate exchanges with their lively CEO Liz Waters.  It was a another great lesson in the importance of taking time out of the ordinary day to engage with other people; to stretch your thinking and learn something new.

We have it in our power to build the world anew.”

Thomas Paine 1737 -1809

To celebrate 25 years of wedded bliss (well, most of the time), my husband and I headed off on a week of cultural events, stopping in the little town of Lewes.  I was surprised to discover that Thomas Paine, author of The Rights of Man (1791), had lived here from 1768 to 1774, before heading to America – where he not only changed their constitution but was also central to naming it the United States of America.

For those of you less familiar, The Rights of Man posited that people have natural rights along with responsibilities, but can revolt if the government is failing to safeguard those natural rights and interests. Paine also argued for the ‘Rights of Infants’ to be free from abuse and poverty.  It’s  a modern message and probably worth a re-read, especially for those of us advocating on behalf of children.

I was equally reminded by my long-wedded husband that Thomas Paine also featured in one of his favourite Bob Dylan songs, As I went out one morning.  That set the tone of the CDs for the rest of the journey; Mozart to Bob Dylan, both of whom would feature in my Desert Island Discs (having already submitted my collection to the reader’s choice, with a million to one chance they will be played on June 11^th). Now, Desert Island Discs being one of my favourite programmes on Radio 4, I have on occasion written to its guests as a direct response to hearing their world view on air; one in particular being Professor David Phillips, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry.  I asked his opinion about how we ensure science remains a crucial focus of the Early Years curriculum, as the basis for inspiring interest and excitement in the subject by our youngest children.

At LEYF, we recently conducted a piece of action research in this very area, led in the main by two exemplary practitioners, Maria Anemouri from Eastbury Children’s Centre Nursery and Michelle Samuels from Marsham Street Community Nursery. We asked the question: was science too focused on biology? Upon investigation, we found that it was, and so began a journey which included sending both Maria and Michelle to the Children Scientist Exhibition in Edinburgh. They came back bursting with ideas – along with a great story about staying in a guest house straight out of Fawlty Towers. The simple outcome was a whole set of learning activities they have since developed - from making toothpaste to every kind of volcano – thereby extending the interest of children, parents and staff in more chemical and physics based approaches. It was written up as an article, Putting the Sparkle Back into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, for EYE magazine (vol 12, 8^th December 2010), and is now set to form a central plank in the LEYF curriculum.

On a final note this week, I was delighted to hear from Julie Weiss, manager of our Luton Street Community Nursery and a great community organiser herself, how she had arrived safely at Paddington Farm in Glastonbury for a long weekend with seven children, two staff and one apprentice. In this world of risk aversion, health and safety mania and litigious attitudes, I am so proud that LEYF staff are still willing to go beyond their core duties to build in the extra cultural capital which makes such a difference to so many of our children; and equally proud that parents allow their children to go. The farm itself, of which I am proud to be chair, has been reconfigured into a social enterprise (surprise , surprise) and offers a lovely country retreat – with among other delights a willow play area, clay pizza oven, forest school and animals set in a beautiful 43 acre organic farm. It’s a beautiful experience for so many children who rarely get beyond the Edgware Road. I really do think quality indicators for nurseries need to recognise outings, trips and holidays for children, as sadly many hardly venture beyond the nursery door.

It made me wonder what Margaret McMillan (1860 – 1931) might have thought of this attitude – with her movement for outside nurseries and fresh air – or Octavia Hill (1838 – 1912), who set up housing with built in open spaces for children to play as well as organising  holidays and countryside experiences for the children of Marylebone…

Thomas Paine complained in the 18^th century ‘These are the times that try men’s souls’; it’s a sentiment I certainly share.