Dear, oh dear, Elizabeth Truss - you really have got it very wrong when it comes to how to calculate staff/child ratios at nurseries.
You'd hope the under-secretary of state for early years would have more sense about whether nursery practitioners in England should be allowed to look after more children at once - seemingly not.
According to the MP, England's adult-to-child ratios for nurseries and child minders are 'restrictive'. She also praised the French system, where children are taught in larger groups by supposedly better qualified and higher paid staff.
As someone who is responsible for running four nurseries - between them registered to look after over 290 children under the age of four - I can honestly say that plans to increase the amount of children that staff can look after gives me great concern.
The over-simplistic 'less staff, higher wage = better quality' equation is an insult to those who currently work with children. No matter how highly paid someone is, it doesn't suddenly give them super-human powers to provide rich and developmentally-appropriate care and learning opportunities to eight highly-demanding two-year-olds - all at the same time.
As they stand, the ratios work perfectly well. Yes, in an ideal world, we'd all love to have an extra member of staff - and good nurseries do work flexibly with these ratios to regularly provide additional support. This enables staff to have time for planning, paperwork, working with others, and generally being the professional that they not only want to be, but one that the government tells them that they should be.
While there are real and understandable concerns about the level of nursery fees - and the government's changes to the childcare benefits system and welfare reforms only crystallise these arguments - the answer should not be to slash quality. Parents need to be better supported financially to help pay for childcare that they feel completely comfortable with. I can tell you for nothing that mums returning to work after maternity leave will not feel happy about leaving their child with one adult and seven other toddlers.
What I would like to do is invite Ms Truss to The Village Nursery, in Trafford Park, to enable her to experience firsthand the demands of the job and test out her proposals of one member of staff looking after eight toddlers. In fact, I would challenge her to just take care of four toddlers. I have a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't be too keen on adding another four to the group!
Follow Julie Lightley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@villagetraffor
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When she heard these proposals she sat down and asked, ”Have these politicians actually got any idea what they are talking about?”
She would love to see any MP look after just two 2yr olds at the same time, and the sight of them trying to look after 6 or 8 would be like watching them trying to herd cats.
Nursery and pre-school staff have enough to do during the day with the numbers they have now. In fact my wife brings home a large amount of admin work and then works (usually unpaid) for several hours each day sorting out the children’s observations, assessments, cover for holidays and/or sickness etc. Plus she has stuff to organise for the holiday club.
By adding more children to the work load of each member of staff the Gov’t are not only going to make the job even more stressful, but will also, in my wife’s opinion (and mine as an outside observer) possibly be putting the children at risk.
If, for instance, a member of staff is busy toileting say 2 children at the same time, then there will be up to 6 children that are temporarily unsupervised. And that is unacceptable.
This ridiculous idea will save the Gov’t money. It will not raise standards but it could raise staff stress, and therefore sickness levels.
Think again Ms Truss
Could you please have a word with Ben Black - article above yours - because he puts forward a weak case in favour of this proposal that can benefit only him and his bank balance, at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of those in his charge.
Greed over responsibility.
I'm with you on this one...
May I suggest that what the government doesn't know can't hurt them, and there's nothing stopping mums from teaming up and paying each other to take turns playing the nursery assistant. You can get your extra income and time to yourself all in one.
If you owned a childcare centre and paid a childminder a salary of £7.00 p hour and this person looks after 4 kids; then the law changes that will allow that same member of staff to look after 6 kids; will you as the business owner
A: Cut your staff numbers as you dont need to employ as many, take on more kids and overburden your
remaining staff whilst you pocket the big bucks and plan to open your fourth centre (maybe using the
ever so well trained and peanut paid Eastern Europeans soon to swamp us all) and thinking
if you really need yet another holiday home on the mega profits ahead?
Or
B: Take on more kids and raise the salary of your hardworking staff above slave wages?
1. If you make people buy shiny new badges then then you can get fewer people to do more work.
2. Fewer people doing more work automatically raises standards
3. Plus you can also give taxpayers money to the people who sell the shiny new badges (after ensuring that their bribes are in order).
4. Also if there a fewer jobs then pay will automatically increase.
Who is stupid enough to believe this?