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.

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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.

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Last week Ofsted produced its Annual Report, the first from her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children Services and Skills, Sir Michael Wilshaw. It also had the First Ofsted Annual Lecture on Early Years given by the Director of Education, Sue Gregory. The report admittedly was slightly overshadowed by the news of the Royal pregnancy, but the findings merit as much attention as the Duchess of Cambridge’s morning sickness.

The report used findings from 24,559 inspections of which 6074 were in nurseries or childcare on non-domestic premises. The report was framed within the usual context that good quality early education is critical to children’s subsequent educational progress and life chances, and that education in the Early Years has an impact on children’s later learning and achievement. And so say all of us.

The report confirmed what we always knew, namely that the large majority of the 1.3 million places available for children under the age of 5 are provided by nurseries, that the sufficiency of places is variable across the country and there remains considerable turnover in the sector.

On the standard of service, the report noted that 74% of Early Years provision is now good or better, compared with 65% three years ago. There was, however, little improvement between this year and last in terms of proportion of good or outstanding. This suggests that improvements brought about by the introduction of the EYFS are levelling off. A third of children had not reached the required standard in language and literacy by the age of 5, a figure that rose to two fifths in deprived areas. Overall, nurseries were rated better at preparing children for school than childminders.

Unsurprisingly, the provision remains weakest in areas of highest deprivation. This is particularly true in the case of childminders, where the gap between the quality of provision of high and low deprivation is wider than for any other type of childcare provider. In the UK, children from the poorest fifth of homes are on average 19 months behind children from richer homes in their use of vocabulary by the age of five. This is worse than two of the three major English speaking countries (in Canada the gap is 10.6 months, and Australia 14.5 months).

In her lecture, Sue Gregory commented on the disproportionate funding for schools and alluded to a special premium for those Early Years providers operating in poorer neighbourhoods or with higher proportions of families living in poverty. In its recent report, the IPPR said that Early Years and youth have seen cuts of 20%. At the Daycare Trust Annual Conference on Tuesday, Lucy Lee of Policy Exchange noted that since 2000 funds to Early Years had gone up just 5.6% while schools had received increases of 55%. So for all the talk about how important we are in setting the scene for successful education, we are still short changed both in reputation, funding and correct support. Is it any wonder that the poorest areas are still feeling the pinch and getting the worse deal?

The Ofsted report findings show that what makes the most difference is the quality of the interaction between adults and children, which leads them to developing good quality early skills. In the best settings, children’s interest is constantly stimulated and adult intervention is well timed so as to respond to children’s curiosity and to challenge their thinking. That will only happen with the involvement of well qualified professionals with at least a relevant Level 3 qualification. The Nutbrown Review 10 year timescale is considered unambitious because it is longer than most children spend in the whole of their early years and primary school education. The report also found that the quality and type of local authority (LA) support for early years provision was variable and often not targeted effectively at those providers that most needed improvement. They listed the top ten LAs and the worse ten. Luckily LEYF is neither operating in the top 10 LAs or the bottom ten LAs. This suggests we are in the satisfactory majority of 132 LAs. Apparently, what makes for outstanding is where LAs offer tailored support to meet the requested needs of particular groups or providers.

Overall, the report notes that too many children are still entering school without the basic skills they need to learn. However, pre-schools and nurseries are better than childminders at preparing children for their next stage. While most childminders provide children with good level of care, many have found it more challenging to provide for the learning and development set out in the EYFS.

The report includes a suggestion that the quality of early learning would benefit from strong links between weaker and stronger providers. It also suggests that good and outstanding providers with high quality leadership and management should operate as nuclei or hubs for networks of childminders and weaker group care providers in their area.

So, what does this report say that we don’t already know?

• The Early Years matters a great deal
• To get the best from the sector we need well qualified staff who have all received relevant and robust training
• Funds need to reflect what we do and be equitable to schools
• Pay attention to our poorest children, they deserve the best
• Make all nurseries communication-rich environments at every level
• Ensure the quality of the interaction between adults and children is rich, stimulating and well-timed so as to respond to children’s curiosity and challenge their thinking (a critical factor for high quality)

The Minister, Elizabeth Truss, had obviously read the report because her speech at the Daycare Trust Conference reflected these very points. Unfortunately, she tempers her thought with continual references to deregulation and reduced ratios. In my view, this will be the unraveling of all the work we have done to get to 74% good and outstanding, with still much to do to get 100% in all areas.

To have high engagement with small children, you need a lot of capable staff. I spent the day with two year olds the other day to remind myself of the demands they place on staff, both physically and emotionally. We had twelve children and four staff with a fifth available… and me! We worked hard to ensure we were responding to those children, following their schemas, playing and talking to them, giving them cuddles while keeping them safe, fed and clean. Fewer staff would have been a high-risk strategy. Babies also need hips and we each have just two.

The Minister is fond of quoting Europe, but the OECD has admitted that the statistics that often finds the UK towards the end of the league tables are old, unreliable and insecure. In fact the OECD is about to re-do them. The European child-adult ratios are lower than ours, but that does not make them right. French visitors to LEYF last week noted how they admire our ratios and want to follow us, especially in their crèches which offer services to those under the age of 3 years.

Let me leave you with the thoughts of a young struggling teacher, Ursula Brangwen in DH Lawrence’s book The Rainbow. In the light of all our research, ask yourself is this what you want for staff and children?

And before this inhuman number of children she was always at bay. She could not get away from it. There it was, this class of fifty collective children, depending on her for command… there were so many that they were not children. They were a squadron. She could not speak as she would to a child. Because they were not individual children; they were a collective inhuman thing.

The Rainbow, DH Lawrence (p376)

This was a busy week for Early Years with the announcement of the Government’s Childcare Commission, the publication of the final report from the Nutbrown Review and the annual two-day NDNA conference which I always attend (partly because I am a Trustee of the NDNA and the London regional representative, but mostly because I also like to take some LEYF staff along with me as my guests).

This year’s conference was in Birmingham, a city which has some gems but is yet to benefit from a visionary urban architect. Julie from Colville, Connor from Katharine Bruce and Nicky from Micky Star (above, starting second from the left) joined me to catch the train from Euston and we spent the first evening walking and bussing around Brum. Finding somewhere to eat proved quite a challenge.  Nicky, our delegated map reader, used her iPhone to great effect, as we traipsed through the labyrinthine streets of Birmingham. (I only wish little Brum had appeared to drive us around in his little yellow car.)

The weather was generally wet, which was good as we were indoors the whole time cogitating, debating and considering all the issues facing the sector. I decided to tweet throughout, although I have to admit to being unsure if any of the hash-tags I used got as far as New St Station, let alone out into the wider world.

Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather MP, opened the conference and was generally welcomed. The NDNA audience is quite discerning, but I guess as practical business people there remains some sympathy for a Government with good intentions but no money. The main Government initiative at present is the Two Year Old programme, only the challenges remain the same: inadequate funds for the free offer, cost of training, demise of local authority support, challenging occupancy and cost of childcare to parents.

The Minister announced that Mott MacDonald had won the contract to provide strategic support for this programme  to the sector, stating that we would need to work with them to ensure they had our input in how they approach the work.

I asked the Minsiter about the Childcare Commission, as yet no more than a title. I suggested it might be the perfect place to have a proper discussion as to what we want as a nation for everyone’s children. Later in the day, John Carnochan, Director of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit,  remembered with fondness speaking at the LEYF Staff Conference last October as he opened his speech at this event with a bold statement:

We want Scotland to be the best place to bring up children.

John Carnochan

If anything, we should be saying this across the whole of the UK, as we then link and weave all our policies and practices to the same vision, rather than our current approach which is to fire fight and apply sticking plasters; some of which are so random they have little more effect than those plasters with cartoons, designed to stop children crying but not necessarily healing the cut.

The Minister said that an official response to Nutbrown will not appear until September, much to the relief of the civil servants in the audience, who must all be on overload with the number of reports and reviews they have been drafting of late. There will be training costs associated with the Nutbrown recommendations, especially getting the whole sector to Level Three. There will also be at least a few challenges, as we work out the perfect diploma and develop pedagogical leadership programmes. On the plus side, we are not without experience, knowledge and ability. I loved Nutbrown’s theme all the way through, that the sector is a maturing industry and as such must lead some of this development. Let’s take some control for our destiny and shape our own future, before someone else shapes it for us.

For me, one of the most interesting presentations of the day was from Kathy Sylva, following some research done with NDNA nurseries (including LEYF!) on parent engagement. So much so, it deserves a blog all of its own, which I promise to do next week.

So, if day one of a conference is this good (and it was), the real challenge is then to maintain that level of engagement and enthusiasm for day two, especially when  the subjects include a business forecast and an update on the new Ofsted. Either way, it starts slightly later, if only perhaps to help those who attended cope from the effects of the Awards dinner the night before. (The band that played at the Edgbaston Stadium was so loud that it was a wonder any of us could talk the next day. Still, for an oldie like me, it’s great to be able to dance to songs which have rhythm and to which I can sing along.)

Courtney Donaldson from Christie and Co did her best to balance the economic situation with some good news. She warned us to keep our eye on the ball and use the right data to give real and timely management information (something I hope we will get better at doing across LEYF with our soon-to-be modernised systems). She pointed to an increase in distressed businesses (especially those in deprived areas), occupancy drop, increase in part time places (81%) and a reliance on NEG places which are causing fault lines to run through the sector.  Like the rest of the conference, she could see no easy solution to the shortfall in NEG payments. Doing her best to finish on an up-beat note, she said there were opportunities (31% expect to expand, especially in the South East) and those who had survived so far were more likely to do so in the continuing economic climate.  A quote shared by John Carnochan sums up how I feel about this:

The challenges we face converge, intertwine, and often remain largely beyond our understanding. Most of us suspect that the “experts” don’t really know what’s going on and that as a species we’ve released forces that are neither managed nor manageable.

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Finally, we learned that Ofsted is changing again in September. The audience was warned to go easy on the speaker as she was but the messenger. And of course, Ofsted is a quango which has lots of power and so always draws criticism from the sector. The biggest complaint in any case remains the differences in the way inspectors inspect, which was also mentioned, especially as Ofsted is busily recruiting new inspectors.  However, to get a real grasp of the changes, which is highly recommended, I urge everyone to examine the website in detail. Meanwhile, the changes essentially boil down to inspections every 47 months, unless triggered by a complaint, child protection issue or change of manager. The inspection will  now have a more powerful emphasis on leadership and management – along with learning and development – with a formal meeting with the manager and joint observations with the manager and the EYP. The issue raised questions for me about how we prepare the deputy and the rest of the leadership team to be able to manage this new inspection, which will continue to be a no notice event, so managers can go on holiday and not be constantly on tenterhooks once an inspection is due.
Conferences are great opportunities for learning, and I have come back with fresh ideas and suggestions for better communication and more effective practice. As a leader having quality time with staff is a very good idea, even if it means traipsing up to Birmingham.

Ofsted gets a mixed reaction from the sector.  It can bring you out in a rash or a hot sweat, but it can also be a very helpful and useful experience. I think we have now had about 50 inspections across LEYF, and of varying quality. The first one was led by Jim Rose back in 1997, when Westminster was a pilot; I remember him refusing lunch in case it constituted a bribe, and instead sticking with his banana.

Inspecting the Early Years

Ofsted is now under new leadership, so in keeping with the arrival of a new leader, we see a bit of a shake-up; and in the true spirit of change management, we start with a consultation.  (This one has just begun, and we have until Friday 6 April 2012 to share our views.)

The changes are to coincide with the revised EYFS, which the Government intends to publish in September. And so this will be a busy and interesting time for those of us due to be inspected around that time.  In the case of LEYF that is about three nurseries.

Over the years we have known a raft of different Ofsted experiences; some good and some pretty terrible. Success always lies with the attitude, personality and competence of the inspector and how they interpret the guidance. Some inspectors bring intelligence, knowledge and sensitivity to the process, whilst others are jobsworths in their approach and get a reaction similar to Marmite: you either love it or hate it.

With the new EYFS emphasising personal, social and emotional learning, communication and physical development, I hope we see inspectors well versed in knowing how to judge the opportunities and experiences the children receive to develop in all those areas, especially the two year olds. Hopefully, that would mean more inspections held with staff and children rather than looking at paperwork.  Many a time I hauled inspectors, anxiously filling in long reports in the office, outside to see children in action.

The consultation wants to ensure inspections reports are helpful to parents.  In that case, they need to be written in a way that tells parents something useful.  Nowadays, inspection reports are so anodyne they tell you next to nothing.

Finally – and this is just a starter for ten – I hope they dump ‘satisfactory’ as a category; it’s so dull and depressing, and just makes one feel lacking and limp.  (Let’s not forget how very important outcomes are for morale and affirmation.)

Of course, there is and should be a monetary factor attached to an Ofsted judgement these days, with some local authorities giving extra funding for good or outstanding  outcomes when allocating the NEG; for example, 40 pence extra per child per hour for getting an outstanding can help make the NEG add up to the real cost of the place.

There is much more to say about Ofsted, and so we must all respond to the consultation. If it was up to me, I would give it back to the Queen and make it Her Majesty’s Inspectorate; an independent, high calibre service staffed with highly intelligent, experienced and capable inspectors. It might give it back its credibility and potency … but hey, imagine the cost!

It’s a shocking thing to discover that a woman once trusted as a reliable and caring nursery officer could be so influenced by her Svengali-like boyfriend, that she would exploit the trust placed in her by parents and abuse their children. If nothing else, the report from Little Ted’s published yesterday reminds us of the absolutely critical nature of strong leadership, solid management systems and a positive culture – where staff feel able to discuss concerns about colleagues in a way that will be taken seriously.

It also begs the question about whether Ofsted is doing its job. At LEYF, we have had over 50 Ofsted inspections in their various forms. At best these provide little more than a snapshot of any situation, and like most things will depend on the calibre of the inspector. In my book, a good inspection is determined by a number of factors; it should be unplanned, place a heavy emphasis on what is happening during the day, involve lots of observation and engagement with all staff and children, and be led by at least two inspectors who know what they are doing and are then able and willing to engage and discuss all the issues in a shared and intelligent way. There was a time when we had to write an action plan following an inspection, and I think we need to do that again, sending a copy to the local authority so they are also informed.  However, it is also worth noting that inspections from local authority advisory teams, whilst not wielding quite the same power as Ofsted, are equally dependent on the calibre and intelligence of the advisory staff.

Either way this is no time for a game of tit for tat; no-one anticipated the situation in Portsmouth.  But since it was allowed to happen, we really must think and act wisely now if we are to have any chance of being ready to head off the next unknown.

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• Vanessa George’s nursery provided ‘ideal environment for abuse’ (telegraph.co.uk)