I've attended a couple of evening sessions re. the Birth to Three Matters stuff. It is causing several childminders to seriously consider giving up minding. Has anyone else attended any sessions/courses yet? Did you come away feeling positive/negative?
We were informed that childminders will be "brought up" to the same standards as other childcare professionals (like nurseries) without any thought seemingly given to the fact that, perhaps, parents have chosen a childminder instead of a nursery because they prefer the (possibly more?) laid-back, home-based setting, particularly for babies/younger children.
We've come away with the feeling that we've all got to do more planning, write down said plans, make observations of children, do more writing based on observations, so that we can do more planning for the next stage of development ... and on it goes. We've obviously got lots of time to do this. Ha ha.
Yes, we mentally do all the things that they want us to do, but now we have to put it in writing. The general feeling amongst minders I know is that they don't want to have to do this, parents don't need us to do this, but OFSTED will expect to see this level of input if we want a decent grading on our inspections.
And we've also been told that the CCP (Certificate in Childminding Practice) is being stopped, and we will be encouraged to do a new NVQ. I'm so pleased I spent so much time on my assignments ...