Childcare is not a dumping ground for the unemployable

The problem with pay is (for the under twos) parents have to pay for a third of staff cost and overheads for each child out of their own salary and not all parents are high earners. Many may not be earning much more than nursery staff and will be working for nothing, or less, to try and retain a career. I remember when I had children at nursery I was left with £50 per month which barely covered commuting costs. I am sure most parents would love to staff to be paid more and be better qualified but they can’t afford it from their salaries.

The thread seems to have wandered off the point somewhat. There is a place for sensible, hard working staff who are good with the children but unqualified. However, qualified staff (level 3 and above) are required to lead and train them, to plan activities appropriate for the children and following their interests, to complete observations and monitor development, picking up any issues as early as possible, to liaise with parents (who may be anxious, demanding, have issues needing support), to support children with SEND etc. The problem is that the balance has tipped and we can't recruit L3 staff so we are lucky to have one per room, especially at the start and end of the day.

Why is this? Contrary to many posters opinions, nursery staff are not dim, drop outs, McDonald's rejects etc. In my nursery five of us have degrees and I recently completed an MA (with merit) in Early Years Education alongside working forty hours a week. Our apprentices must have GCSE English although the maths requirement has been dropped as otherwise even fewer would qualify (does this reflect the quality of maths teaching in schools?). Twenty percent of their hours are for study and they have to submit academic assignments as well as observed practice. They either work damned hard or drop out.

So why can we not recruit and retain qualified staff?

1. Pay - at L7 I earn £14.49 per hour and my company is one of the better payers. I could earn more cleaning at the local hospital (and indeed we lost a good staff member to precisely this job)
2. Expectations - as a pp said, we do SALT, physiotherapy, attention autism interventions etc. on top of our everyday work. Expected to work overtime most days with no notice, to update training on safeguarding, Prevent, food hygiene among others in our own time, to turn up to summer/ Christmas fairs and other events (unpaid), to do parents evenings after a ten hour shift, to come in early or stay late to meet parents or phone them at short notice. All this for the poor pay received.
3. Being perceived as stupid by the general public and condescended to by them and by parents, (most are pleasant, some are breathtakingly rude).

A previous poster said nursery work was their dream job but they wouldn't do it as they found out how low the pay is. As parents MNetters should consider whether they want educated, appropriately remunerated and respected professionals to care for and support the development of our youngest children, or whoever we can pull in off the street, which is where we are heading.

Apologies for the essay but there are hundreds of threads discussing issues of teacher recruitment and retention but little about the crisis in early years. This should be a much more prominent topic considering how many posters use nursery care.

I've voted YABU, because you are blaming the wrong people for the frustrating situation you feel you are in.
This is entirely the fault of management/whoever has hired these people. It's not their fault!

Oh I didn't realise that. In Ireland you must have at least a Level 5 (which is currently a year's study with a module of work placement that you must pass too)

I am actually surprised by this. As a nanny with over 20 years experience, level 2 in childcare ( 3 years nursery bank staff experience) i applied to loads of nurseries last year and was unsuccessful as they needed more experience and qualification.

I am also hearing wider reports of younger people being more work shy. Obviously not all young people, there will be some very hard workers, but as a fairly consistent trend from all sectors.

They don’t, it all falls on the few.

i’ve been present when an inadequate staff member told a parent that their baby had eaten all of their lunch that day. Then the lunch containers were collected up to go home, and each one was totally full. The child had had no lunch or had had someone else’s lunch.
I had a colleague who refused to feed babies whose bottles contained expressed breast milk which they said was disgusting. In fact I’ve had several of those colleagues

I have planned activities, made wall decorations, changed nappies, answered the phone and written reports x2 because my colleague refused. She was paid the same as me.

How would they know about allergy and health issues?

How would they do the paperwork for those babies though? How would they talk to the baby's parents about their day?

Babies need to learn language too.

100% they do. They're highly regulated and have qualification conditions and they're not paid in line with those expectations. Starmer's government has made it even harder to pay a higher rate in social care by failing to exempt social care from the NI rises.

However responsible employers would ensure staff can communicate and complete paperwork.

There's absolutely no way on earth I would leave my child in a nursery. They are becoming increasingly untrustworthy and tragic "accidents" frighteningly frequent.

Same in the probation service. I see people joining us who have a UK degree but can't spell and are utterly shocked at having to work face to face with people who have committed serious offences. Government is so desperate for staff that they have reduced the entry requirements

YANBU it’s unfair that other staff are having to pick up the slack and I wouldn’t want these people looking after my DC.

Another problem is immigrants who don't really speak the language in care sectors. My grandfather had carers who didn't understand him and couldn't make themselves understood. They accused him of being racist when he asked for someone who spoke English. The same in a friend's daughter's nursery. Two staff members hardly speak English. They are lovely girls and the children like them and if they only took care of babies that would be one thing but it's problematic that they can't read and stimulate the children's communication. But then again maybe care staff need to be paid more to attract qualified people ?

"It's not literally just 'caring' as in changing nappies, comforting them and wiping noses etc."

Neither is working with adults with complex needs.

OK, so you are talking about organised crime gangs defrauding the benefit system? We are at cross purposes then, as I thought you were one of these people who believe that individual PIP claimants are defrauding the system in sufficient numbers for it to be an issue.

Absolutely. And transversely, my friend with cerebral palsy can do a professional job, and does, but cannot shower or dress herself. How will that work if they have 1 assessment for life AND work?

"I think this is only the case if you think of care of a small child as being restricted to their physical requirements of food, cleaning, toileting etc. It is not true as soon as you make proper consideration of a child’s developmental needs."

I think you don't understand the work involved in supporting an adult with complex needs. Eg being able to understand and communicate with someone who is non verbal. Being able to understand often very subtle body language with missing it meaning distressed behaviour. Monitoring and doing necessary intervention to avoid behaviours that challenge including out in the community. Being able to manage challenging behaviour in someone who is bigger and stronger than you. Knowing how to get the person to co operate with personal care. Providing education in some cases. Some people will require complex medical care. And more including keeping a record of all of this.

I think it's fine to object to someone being called unemployable if you know for a fact there's a job they could viably and sustainably perform within our current employment parameters. But unfortunately, those aren't very accommodating towards people who aren't capable of consistently generating at least the cost of NMW plus employers NI plus any pension costs plus whatever supervision they need.

Yep, I posted a couple of months ago around the benefit changes about how there will be more and more threads about people moaning about their colleagues and having to pick up the slack and work extra hours and it hasn't even started yet but it's coming. I'm currently on pip and work part time but I'm a terrible employee I'm hardly ever there due to appointments, treatments, recovering from surgeries and flare ups. I'm of sick as we speak. My shifts still have to be covered so it means my colleagues doing overtime and coming in on there days off

When I was in high school and the work experience lists went up, it was ALL retail and childcare. Very few kids had the opportunity to arrange their own work experience so the girls were all funneled into nurseries in the area for a fortnight. Including me, which wasn't suitable at all.

My sibling though has worked in early years for almost two decades and I think it's pretty shameful how undervalued the sector is. As you say, it's an important time in a child's life and they need more than an endless procession of 17 year olds trying to find their feet.

Yeah I know what you mean. "They haven't worked since their early twenties" could easily be a mum that took time out to be with the kids. Some of the other stuff listed could be worked on and they could learn on the job. Sure some of them probably shouldn't be there though.

Also the idea that they're forced to be there by the jobcentre and a nuisance to everyone. Not every unemployed person wants or needs to be unemployed. I suppose the jobcentre probably forced my employer to hire me but I'm glad they did. Otherwise they'd never hire anyone with a "CV gap"

I am not talking about the average person. I am saying it is naive to think no one commits PIP fraud. People go to huge lengths to commit fraud of all sorts. PIP is not exempt from that. And you hardly need to go to the effort of stealing hospital stationary - it is easy enough to print it off yourself. Fraudsters create all sorts of false documents to back up claims. Indeed, it would not surprise me if there were criminal organisations creating a whole range of identities to claim PIP through.

I was a teacher for many years in a girls comprehensive and later a further education college. For any girls struggling with learning or with attendance issues amongst other difficulties they would often be steered towards hairdressing, beauty or child development. This always troubled me because the early years are the most important in a person’s learning and development. If you meet a duff teacher at thirteen in your English class for example, it won’t cause you the same damage as spending a year with somebody not able to meet your learning needs when you are three or five years old for example.