To think change in childcare ratios will lower childcare standards

[moogy1a]

Proposed change in ratios for nurseries and childminders means that some nurseries will almost double the number of children with the same number of staff.
How can this possibly improve childcare standards? Common sense says more children, less attention per child no matter how qualified the staff.
The proposal also seems to think this will lower costs. it won't. Costs per child will be the same but nursery profits will increase.
For CM's the ratios are also to increase. The whole point of CM's is that you can get out and about to parks / playgroups etc. How will that happen with 4 one year ols to transport?

hopandskip wrote "I agree it's not always ideal already. I don't think before about 2.5 many children get anything out of it, unless they are very independant and confident. But I have to disagree about the danger aspect. You can't concentrate on what you are doing with that many children. You won't be watching to pre-empt a child hitting another child with a wooden toy, or a child climbing on a table and falling off. And also just the general impossible-ness of nap times, going out, meal times so on. Have you ever tried feeding 6 children at once? (presuming people are still allowed lunch breaks under this new rule, there will be one member of staff out of the room at a time for a large portion of each day)"

I think your first sentence is really important. You're work in the area, and you believe it isn't ideal and that most children will spend 2 years (from 6 months to 2 1/2 years) getting nothing out of the experience that will fill most of their waking day at a time of crucial developmental importance. Yet nurseries are full - often with waiting lists! If parents will accept that now - surely they will accept a little drop in quality?

I take your point that it would be unpleasant with fewer staff - but the main impediment (that it is not ideal for children) has already been dealt with. If the wooden toys are dangerous... get rid of them and use soft ones... or just accept that kids get hit more often.... No problem feeding 6 children - plonk the food in front of them, and if they eat it they eat it... it's called baby led weaning... and it's best practice

Clearly if you remove profit from the equation, as happens on the "continent" nurseries which are state-run, childcare becomes affordable with the current staff ratios.
If you don´t, then the only way to make it affordable is by halving staff numbers.

This is true. State run nurseries mean employees are state employees and on standardised civil service payscales. When staff costs are fixed you don't have the same race to the bottom.

I think it's a ridiculous proposal. You can already see at my daughters nursery that the poor staff are rushed off there feet with the current ratio's and struggle to spend time with the children. If the ratio's go up i'll seriously consider quiting work!

The new level 3 CACHE childcare qualification can only be passed if you pass a level 2 exam (GSCE A - C grade) at both maths and English. If you fail at either of those exams, you fail the whole course.

Just because you have a piece of paper with a qualification, it doesn't mean that you are a good child carer.....that comes from the heart.

I have been in childcare for over 20 years and while I am qualified, I know that I could still do an amazing job without that qualification.

My daughter (aged 14) is also a very capable young lady with babies and children and I am encouraging her to go into childcare. She too will be studying childcare qualifications and is far from being thick. Please don't assume that it is only the option of "thick students who can't do anything else", there are plenty of people in childcare because they are fantastic at it......my daughter will be one of them

Selfishly very glad my dd was born long enough ago to not be affected. The whole point of a childminder as far as I'm concerned is a sort of calmish, home from home with not many other children demanding attention. Just like being at home but a bit more sociable.

And I thought my childminder was/is amazing coping with the numbers she did.

And you don't need english and maths to teach a small child to count to ten, recognise letters, which is all I want at that age.

I shall sign the petition, thanks.

Children require the necessary love, care and attention, which give them positive learning experiences, especially in the first 3 years of their life. Having less staff and more children is going to decrease the level of care which will affect the child?s emotional and social wellbeing. Not to mention their safety.

Children are the most precious things in life and we have a duty to nurture, teach and look after their levels of wellbeing. There are so many people against this where I work so we have started signing petitions. Nursery Community seem to be making good headway with this. www.nurserycommunity.com/childcare-ratio/ but there are others out there. Those in support should get signing.

The above, coupled with stressed and over-worked Childcare Practitioners is a recipe for disaster and this must be stopped.

Nursery Nurse in Sussex

I was just checking the facts on this with regards to childminders, the proposed changed are:

England (proposed) - Childminders can have a maximum of six children under the age of 8, a maximum of four young children (until 1st September following their 5th birthday), and a maximum of two children under 1. Ratios can be exceeded by one for reasonable periods of time to allow for overlaps between children.

England (current) - Childminders can have a maximum of six children under the age of 8, a maximum of three young children (until 1st September following their 5th birthday), and a maximum of one child under 1.

So the total number of children a childminder can look after remains the same, however they can now look after max four children under 5 of which two can be under the age of one.

So these changes to childcare ratios will enable nurseries to reduce fees AND increase worker's salaries....

Having managed a day nursery what I don't understand is where all the extra children will fit?!

Ofsted did have regulations about the size of the space required for each child. The nursery building would be measured and the premises registered for x amount of children.

If the nursery can suddenly increase the ratio's and hence the number on roll we will be looking at very cramped and noisy environments.

Who would want to work in these conditions or pay (yes still no government subsidies) to put their child in such a place?

To those saying the children should be in a safe environment anyway. Having worse ratios may mean not walking around a lake, or removing high slides, or not visiting an animal park, or not having bikes to ride, or not being allowed ropes to play with, etc because the staff can't physically keep that many children safe. Therefore they will be in a boring safe environment.

I think working with young children can be an interesting and rewarding occupation for intelligent and well qualified women, it's just a shame that the incentives aren't there to support that choice. Early Years education is not valued in this country based on how those working in this area are treated.

I think skilled interactions based on good observations of the children can make a huge difference to their development too.

After reading that Telegraph article by Judith Woods, Really We Want Cuddles, I've changed some of my views. Why is childcare considered to be so "fluffy"...it actually made me feel slightly nauseous about how all children wanted to do was listen to stories about magic trees. Any parent will know that children are very task driven. They don't want to just doss around, they are busy at learning things. And unless you have some vague conception of the way children develop you are not going to be able in a nursery environment help them learn things. Why is childcare assumed to be something that any fool can do?

I take it all back, people (and not just "girls" as Judith Woods so sickeningly put it) need to be educated to give appropriate responses to children in what is after all, an extremely artificial environment, not in any way like your average home.

Ratios should stay the same and childcare should be regulated so that more intelligent people are rewarded for working in nurseries.

I've done a bit more reading about this and broadly I think Truss's argument is not totally barmy. However, I do wonder if she has mis-analysed the situation in mainland Europe.

I think most people agree the qualifications are off-issue here (especially 2 GCSEs in English and Maths, that doesn't remotely approach what you learn in a childcare diploma), but maybe the ratios are too. I'd be really interested what nursery professionals have to say about this. I'm not so freaked out by "1:6" because I live in Germany where it is normal. But there are two differences. Firstly, it's not 1:6 in a room of entirely two-year-olds. It's 1:6 in a mixed group, aged between 1 and 6 with one or two babies as not many under-1s go to nursery in Germany. Because all the groups are mixed age, the older children don't need the same intensity of attention as the little ones, and they do balance the intake across the ages.

Secondly, German nurseries seem to have massively much less red tape than English ones. Being British, I would find more regulation reassuring, but I try to hold my nerve about it because it's true that there comes a point where risk-aversity does more harm than good. The children at DD's nursery go out every day - to the park, the zoo, museums, the forest, gymnastics, sledging - all on this ratio. We don't sign consent forms, we don't even know they've gone until they're back half the time, they often go spontaneously. There are no accident books as far as I know (accidents are logged with the central authorities if the child has to see a doctor) or communication books, nobody logs what the child has eaten or excreted - the staff spend their time looking after the children, not filling out forms. IS nursery care so much better and "individualized" in Britain, thanks to the ratio? And is my DD's experience, because it has lower ratios, more "institutional"?

If the problem is actually paperwork, not ratio, the same amount of paperwork with a 1:6 ratio will be worse, not better. All the red tape the Tories say they're going to cut is about staff regulation, but not what the staff have to do every day with regard to the children.

From the Tories, I would like to see Truss's ideas backed up by some concrete proposals to actually bring about the effects she claims, rather than just theoretically make them possible. I would like to see some calculations regarding how much salaries can rise by, on these changes. And how are they are going to regulate it, many nurseries will cut ratios and not lower fees or raise salaries because they are private businesses with waiting lists, not charities. Regulating the free market's hardly very Tory...

And also "Judith" if you didn't know, "skipping from one foot to another" is something that a child care practitioner would recognise as an important developmental stage, and flag up if the child couldn't do it.

I think I will give up now then.... I don't have GCSE Grade C in Maths, am a dinosaur so took 'O'levels and got a D but did get a B in English . My feeder school takes my children the term after they are 4 to go into a 'nursery class' (it's really reception). Only a very small primary school with about 24 children in the whole of it so can see me loosing my 2-3 year old's if they are able to start school at that age.

Who wants to start a babysitting circle? Qualified practitioner with Level 2 & 3 NVQ's, halfway through her foundation degree but only Grade D at Maths

Weissbier, there are two different issues I think. Firstly, I do believe that better qualified practitioners provide better care - the ethos of the EYFS for instance is about skilled adults supporting child-initiated play in order for them to learn through their experiences. These skilled interventions into children's play only really happens if the adults involved are knowledgeable, and there are enough adults to have individual interactions with the children.

Secondly - ratios. I doubt many people would object to a 1:10 ratio for 3 and 4 year olds, most 4 and 5 years olds are already in 1:15. But babies, toddlers and 2 year olds need more care. A mixed age group of 1-5 year olds in a 1:6 ratio could work here with existing ratios in fact, if you had a nursery teacher plus two assistants, caring for three 1yos, four 2yos and five 3yos and six 4yos for example - so 3:18.

Under-educated "girls" who are good at cuddling and changing nappies have an important place in childcare, but I don't think their role should be educational, they shouldn't be expected to interpret the EYFS and do lots of paperwork. Maybe mixed age groups are the way to go - with a teacher or graduate leading, some well qualified practitioners (foundation degrees?) to carry out the work, and "support workers" to do the cuddling and basic needs. Actually, this is close to how it works in my DS's state nursery - a well qualified person leading the room, doing paperwork and planning, and support by less qualified workers who mix paints, change wet clothes, wipe noses.

Samsmalaidh - quite, that is exactly how it works here - I think per German group of 12 mixed-age 0-3 (often it is 0-3 as the 3+ go to Kindergarten, it depends - where DD is they're 18 mnths - 6) there must be 1 Erzieherin (3 years full-time study) and one Kinderpflegerin (it's flexible what qualifications you need for that as you're allowed to substitute experience). They often bump this up with a Praktikantin, an intern. I didn't mean to be flippant about qualifications, indeed I meant the 2 GCSEs were a bit of an insult to all those who do have relevant qualifications, like insancerre says. I don't think Truss's argument is so stupid, but it's how she proposes to implement it that will misfire - if it is, as I suspect, based on skewed comparisons with Europe, and a lack of real calculations and market regulation proposals at home.

Sam " I doubt many people would object to a 1:10 ratio for 3 and 4 year olds..."
A lot would. I would. Nurseries do 1:8 at the moment but many have better ratios of 1:6 or 7. 10 children aged 3 and 4 might mean 10 children who have just turned 3, who are a hell of a lot more work than 4 and a half year olds.

" A mixed age group of 1-5 year olds in a 1:6 ratio could work here with existing ratios in fact,..." The old ratios of about 10 years ago were as they are now with the addition of mixed age groups of 2-5 year olds which were 1:6 as you suggested. However, it often worked out as a large group of 2 year olds and 1 or 2 children just over 3 so the managers could call it a mixed group and have few staff. A bit of a fiddle really..

Nurseries without a teacher might do 1:8, but I have seen many state nurseries work fine with nearer 1:10 with a qualified teacher and 2 assistants. So long as you have someone very qualified leading the group (and dealing with planning), with a support worker to tend to children's physical needs, I think relaxing the ratios a little for older children would work fine. However, this is unlikely to work in private nurseries as they aren't able to pay the wages of graduate/teaching staff.

Under 3s definitely need a quantity of adults, as well as quality though.

I doubt this will affect child minders so much as nurseries. You can't force someone to care for more children than they want to, and if they are in short supply, the government is in no position to order them around. Indeed, child minders might find that they can charge a premium if they keep their ratios low.

France works on that principle too. The head is very qualified - graduate level - and the nursery nurses are there to assist. They're even called 'auxiliares'. The huge difference, and possibly why quality remains relatively high despite a hugely different ratio, is that the equivalent if level 3 practitioners are not expected to be autonomous in the same way. Plus there isn't the focus on what they are or excreted

tapdancingmum you would be fine, the changes (as I read them) aren't retroactive. The requirements are for entrants to childcare courses - possibly another thing Truss has got from the continent. You must have a CAP, your bac or take some tough entrance tests to be entered for the competitive exam which will get you a place on the one and only course which is recognised by the state.

I live in Germany and it is very free-play based up to age 6. Ratios can be high though and it can definitely impact safety and care. So don't think combining UK-style free play (as opposed to French/ Belgium formality) with 'continental' higher ratios is possible without neg impact. I've witnessed/ heard first hand of:

• Toddlers under childminder's care running into the road,

• Toddlers running away unnoticed from childminder, climbing up big-kid slide/ climbing frames and slipping off

• nappies left unchanged even when they've leaked through and soaked clothes (nursery)

• poo left on loo seats (kindergarten)

• Crying babies regularly not cuddled instead stuffed with dummies

• Crying toddlers regularly shut up with biscuits/ sweets.

• Babies putting stones in their mouths while childminder chasing toddlers

• Toddler falling off ride-on and crying, unnoticed by childminder striding ahead with trolley full of babies

• toddlers being encouraged to come into nappy room to watch so remaining worker doesn't have too mainy children to care for.

As Weissbier said, it is heavily subsidised by govt, but there's a huge shortage and waiting lists years long. Nursery workers not much valued by society. Ratios where I live: childminders 1:6, DS's playgroup for 2 yos also 1:6; DD's kindergarten (age 3-6), 2.5 nursery workers for a class of 22 (so about 1:9).

However, quality can vary wildly and I've waited for places at kindergartens/ playgroups I liked (which happen to be a state-run and a community-run one), and travel further for one of them, rather than send to nearby overburdened childminder/ dummy-stuffing nurseries. And the good ones are mostly great, loads of outdoor play, singing, days in woods each week, baking, drama etc. Lovely carers, just overstretched at times. Safety at these places improved by playgroup having their own large toddler playground and kindergarten teaching road safety straight away each Sept so trips out not quite so worrying. In fact I don't worry.

I don't think it would be good enough to just have a well qualified Head - there needs to be a well qualified person working hands-on with a small group of children, so they are familiar with those children and able to intervene in and guide individual children's play.

So could someone tell just what the government think they will achieve by doing this? It won't lower CC costs that's a cert. I really don't get the logic