Ok so this is slightly off topic for what I meant this blog to do. But the governments announcement about how they intend to improve early years has got all my friends (the actual people I know on facebook as well as the clever people I stalk on twitter) very upset and I completely agree!
So my very basic take is this, yes it's great that early years staff should need to hold better qualifications and that we should respect the people we put in charge of raising our babies when we are not there, and yes to enable those parents who want/need to go back to work this needs to be affordable. This has always struck me as a bit of a catch 22, and I'm pretty sure changing the ratios is not the way to go about this.
We entrust the staff at nurseries with the lives of our tiniest members of society, asking them to nurture them, care for them and educate them in our absence. To me this feels like it should be expensive. I can't think of much else more valuable than that!
The new ratios would see the ratios being changed to 1:4 for the under 1s and 1:6 for 2 year olds. This seems crazy! OK again the staff will be expected to be better qualified but I'm not sure that actually helps too much. I am a teacher qualified to masters level but this has not helped me sprout more arms, more eyes or be able to slow time.
Zoe Williams wrote an entertaining article in the guardian today, where she looked after 6 toddlers. Chaos ruled, and she makes light hearted comments about how you would need to keep them in smaller areas and how taking them out would be even more of a challenge.
It worries me that in a time when there is already concern that we protect our children too much and are too risk averse that these changes will encourage this even more. Will nurseries not have to really think carefully about every activity they make available (even more than now) to make sure that they are all really completely safe for unsupervised play? Will we not wrap our kids in even more cotton wool and further limit their experiences?
Now I am completely naive about this so forgive me if I am utterly wrong but how will changing ratios lower costs? Yes I get that it theoretically should, more children per adult (although these adults will be being paid more), but nurseries are businesses are they really going to lower costs or just take on more children and increase profit? I also worry that it will lead to larger variation in quality, something the EYFS is meant to have addressed. As if some nurseries take on the new ratios and lower costs, while others keep existing ratios but charge a premium for it are we not creating a 2 tier nursery system depending on what you can afford? I know these variations already exist but we are further widening the divide.
I haven't read in depth the proposals so may well being swept up in media hype. I believe we should look to models of early years provision that are successful, such as Denmark, but I'm pretty sure there is more to their success than their ratios....
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