Research and policy
Policy: Children's sector workforce: latest reports
26 Jul 2008
- Bercow report (July 2008)
- Young at heart (May 2006)
- Rose Review (March 2006)
- Early Years Foundation Stage, Direction of Travel (December 2005)
- Lessons from International Early Years Policy (July 2005)
- Too Much, Too Late: Life chances and spending on education and training (March 2005)
The Bercow Report
The Bercow Report (led by John Bercow, MP) is a review of the provision of services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. The final report was published in July 2008 following an interim report in March.
The review was launched in September 2007 by DCSF and DH. The review looked at how services can provide the best provision for early intervention and how local services can work closely together. Views were sought from parents and health and education professionals as part of the review. To find out more and download the final report visit the DCSF website.
Key facts from the final report:
- Approximately 50% of children and young people in some socio-economically disadvantaged populations have speech and language skills that are significantly lower than those of other children of the same age
- Approximately 7% of five year olds entering school in England - nearly 40,000 children in 2007 - have significant difficulties with speech and/or language
- Approximately 1% of five year olds entering school in England - more than 5,500 children in 2007 - have the most severe and complex SLCN
(Bercow Report, July 2008)
Read the NLT response to the Bercow Review
Read TTYB's submission to the review
Also: Every Child a Talker - a government funded early years language initiative - announced July 2008
Young at heart
Children's minister Beverley Hughes reveals the Government thinking behind the draft of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
These are exciting times for early years and childcare. Implementation of the Government's ten-year strategy has already begun to make a real difference. And a ground-breaking Childcare Bill will continue to transform the early years landscape. The Bill's focus is on improving children's life chances reducing inequalities, improving information to parents and ensuring sufficient childcare is available to meet their needs. It speaks powerfully on quality and provides for the creation of the EYFS.
The EYFS has been designed to deliver the quality children need and the confidence parents want in childcare. It is designed to ensure that settings provide a nurturing environment, that they are safe and that there is a focus on every child's development. And the framework goes with the grain of existing practice. It brings together three currently separate elements: Birth to Three matters, the Foundation Stage and the National Standards for daycare and childminding. So, care, learning and development in this earliest phase of a child's life will be brought together in a single framework, bringing greater coherence and emphasising continuity.
Alongside the statutory requirements, EYFS will set out guidance and describe good practice to help raise quality across the board. This is being developed in partnership with the sector, so it reflects existing effective practice in the very wide range of settings which will delivery EYFS. The majority of the goals at the end of EYFS will mirror those in the existing Foundation Stage. One goal has been slightly altered in both the draft EYFS and the renewed literacy framework, to take account of the findings of the Rose Review into early reading.
We've seen a lot of nonsense in the press that our proposals will force young children into formal learning too soon. That is not the case. For staff, EYFS will be rigorous. It will require effective planning, observation and assessment - a systematic approach. It will require practitioners to think hard about their teaching and their support for children's learning. But the individual child's experience will continue to be informal, spontaneous and enjoyable.
Learning through play
Early education and care must be about using play to enhance and develop children's experiences. Teaching and learning take place through practitioners getting involved in children's play - planning, supporting and extending it.
And play is, of course, an essential experience in its own right, through which children not only learn and develop their creativity and imagination, but enjoy life, make friends and feel good about themselves and about others. Babies will still play with 'gloop' or in the sandpit, children will still explore, make mistakes and be adventurous.
Working in partnership with parents is an integral part of EYFS, which providers will do as a matter of course. Other partnerships with, for instance, speech and language therapists, portage workers or specialist teachers, will also be key. Collaboration between providers will be essential if each child is to learn to the best of their ability. For example, a child may start the day with a childminder and go back to the childminder after playgroup, nursery or school. The childminder might, for example, pursue a 'zoo' theme which a child had begun at nursery, through everyday activities like feeding the rabbit.
Workforce and training
We all need to set our sights high and develop a truly world-class workforce if we are to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities. In driving up quality we must build on existing good practice and improve qualifications, training and management.
Research has shown that children's outcomes are better in settings where staff are highly qualified. We have considered how best to encourage settings to employ more highly qualified practitioners, without adversely affecting affordability and sustainability. We have made £250 million available for a Transformation Fund to improve qualification levels, with training routes to a new, graduate level Early Years Professional status, and better qualified staff at all levels. The Fund is targeted towards private and voluntary sector providers, who have such an important role in delivering the Early Years Foundation Stage.
It will be vital that local authorities use this funding to take the lead on the workforce agenda and ensure that early years education and childcare workers receive the appropriate learning and development to deliver the EYFS well.
(Reported in Nursery World, 18 May 2006)
Early Years Foundation Stage, Direction of Travel
The Vision
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is about improving life chances for all children, by giving them the opportunity to have the best possible start, regardless of their family circumstances or the setting they attend. They EYFS will be designed to deliver improved outcomes for all children, across every area of learning and development. We know that there are particular gains for disadvantaged children from early access to high quality care and education and we will focus on closing the achievement gap between those children and others.
Through the Childcare Bill, we seek to establish a single coherent phase of development for all young children, as announced in the 10 year strategy for childcare 'Choice for parents, the best start for children'. We will provide a flexible system that fosters and supports their development from birth, where they will interact with adults that are appropriately trained and experienced; in environments that are safe, caring and loving. The approach of practitioners will be age appropriate, ensuring that there are different activities for children of different ages and at different stages of their development. Through the EYFS parents can feel secure knowing that all settings will allow children to progress at a pace that's right for them as individuals, taking account of any particular needs they may have.
For young children, care and learning are indistinguishable. Care cannot be considered to be of good quality unless it provides opportunities for children to learn and develop. Learning cannot be considered to be of good quality unless it is provided within an environment where all children feel safe, secure and included. By applying the same system to all providers we will ensure a level of consistency and quality across all settings. The child's needs do not change depending on the setting and nor should the standards and quality experienced by the child.
Context
[.] The Childcare Bill provides for the creation of the EYFS, to be launched in 2008 and to be compulsory for all early years providers that have to register with Ofsted as well as independent, maintained and non-maintained special schools with provision for children from the age of three to the end of the academic year in which they turn five. This will help to create a level playing field between maintained, voluntary and private sectors, ensuring a consistent, high quality experience for all children, regardless of which setting they attend.
The EYFS will bring together the current Birth to three Framework, the Foundation Stage and elements of the National Standards for under-eights daycare and childminding into a single framework. It will cover children's development and learning experiences from birth to 31 August following a child's fifth birthday. The Childcare Bill will give EYFS the same legal status as the Foundation Stage currently has under the National Curriculum, whilst also removing the Foundation Stage from the National Curriculum.
[.] The Childcare Bill specifies the areas of learning and development for the EYFS. These are:
- Personal, social and emotional development
- Communication, language and literacy
- Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
- Knowledge and understanding of the world
- Physical development
- Creative development
(Extracted from Early Years Foundation Stage, Direction of Travel Paper, February 2006)
Lessons from International Early Years Policy
Support from the Start: Lessons from International Early Years Policy, written by Jenny North and published by The Maternity Alliance, July 2005, examines what works in supporting pregnant women, new parents and babies in the first year of life. It is based on evidence from eight countries and provides recommendations tailored to the UK.
Report findings on childcare
When a child enters care outside the home, one of the key responsibilities of the provider is to provide a stimulating environment that will ensure the child's social and emotional development is not impaired while she is away from her parents. In some cases, childcare can offer a healthier, more stimulating environment than that on offer at home. Daycare should allow access to age-appropriate educational materials, supervised socialisation with other children, and a high level of quality interactions with a well-trained and committed carer.
However, all too often, childcare is seen primarily as a function of women's increased activity in the labour market - a place for children to be while their parents are at work. The average childcare worker in the UK has had, at most, two years of post-16 training. The average wage is less than £7,000 per annum, and high staff turnover is common in most facilities. Childcare is a low paid, low status job, and is rarely considered a career (Daycare Trust, 2004). Childcare - particularly for the under-threes - is not seen as an opportunity for children to develop and grow outside the home.
Improving the provision (and, more recently, quality) of childcare has been on the government's agenda since 1997. Local authorities have been extremely successful in providing free part-time places for every three and four year old. Some areas are now piloting provision for two year olds. However, there is, as yet, no theoretical framework underlying childcare in the UK.
There are different frameworks to choose from. Several Northern European countries have, over the last 30 years, developed universal provision that centres around a conception of the infant and pre-school child as a responsive individual, who is shaped by her experience in childcare. This means that she deserves a highly skilled carer.
However, this conception of the child has developed differently in different countries. For example, the dominant theory of 'pedagogy' in Denmark is characterised by concern for the whole child - her development in the widest sense of the word. She is a 'citizen', and not yet a 'pupil', although she is constantly learning. The pedagogue responsible for her is neither a 'carer', nor a 'teacher'.
In Sweden - and, more recently, New Zealand - the early years worker is a teacher, and a child's education is a continuous spectrum from birth to nineteen. Each new stage of learning depends on quality teaching and care in the stage before. Both these models produce childcare and early education that is sensitive, and responsive, to children's needs.
It is vital that policymakers and practitioners in the UK recognise the importance of developing a theoretical framework for childcare - either modelled on one of the two Northern European conceptions, or a new model which uses elements of both. Without a clear understanding of how children should be cared for, and a commitment to implementing this model in all childcare settings, it is too likely that, at least in some cases, childcare will not offer children anything other than a place to be when their parents cannot be with them.
This is a crucial element to improving the quality of childcare in the UK. The other is improving the qualifications of the workforce. The recent Ten Year Strategy For Childcare accepts that 'key explanatory factors' for better quality childcare are 'staff with higher qualifications. Trained teachers working alongside less qualified staff .[and] staff with a good understanding of child development and learning'. Despite this, the government has not committed to a workforce qualification target.
This is in contrast to New Zealand, where the childcare workforce will be entirely made up of trained teachers by 2012. In Sweden, 60% of the workforce is educated to degree level. Danish pedagogues must train for three years. The only commitment Labour has made is to have one graduate worker in each childcare setting. This is not enough to make a difference. In addition, the 'Transformation Fund', provided to improve the skills of the workforce, is £125 million over three years from 2006. This equates to just £500 for every worker. This is not enough to fund training, or raise salaries.
Recommendations on improving childcare
- Ambitious targets should be set for improving the qualifications of the childcare workforce. In addition, more funding is needed to facilitate the training of existing staff, and to increase salaries.
- The Childcare Tax Credit should be phased out, with the money being given direct to childcare facilities to enable improvement of services, better salaries for workers and more affordable fees
- Childcare providers must involve parents more - both in their decision making processes, and by making parents feel more welcome in childcare facilities.
(Extracted from Support from the Start: Lessons from International Early Years Policy, written by Jenny North, published by The Maternity Alliance, July 2005)
