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?

One thing which could improve early years education/childcare would be to provide more centralised support in implementing the EYFS. There could be much more sharing of good practice. ie. instead of just providing the EYFS requirements the government and their early years advisors (currently involved in writing the EYFS framework) could also provide suitable formats for observations of the children and planning sheets etc. and firmer guidelines on how often each type of obs should be done for each child. ATM each nursery/ early years setting is re-inventing the wheel in working all this out for themselves and practice is very variable eg with some nurseries doing too much paperwork to the detriment of engaging with the children, and others doing very little observation or reflection on their practice, making it hard to build on the children's experiences and learning.

In Quebec, where I am from, families pay $7 per DAY per child (that's about £5.50). Nurseries are very heavily subsidised, and have strict curriculum/guidance. And since 2008 when it started, it has enabled (obviously that's an estimate ) 70 000 mums to go back to work, for a province that has only 7 million people. It has, also a good estimate, boosted the economy of the province by $5 billion since. The initial investment was of $1.6 billion. It is very costly to start with but the boost in the economy is huge.

blueberry - what is tax rate in Quebec? Is the tax system funding the childcare?

I am a lvl3 nursery nurse in an outstanding nursery. I have been in childcare for 6 years now, and I do not see how increasing the ratio of children:adults can possibly benefit the children.
England has the highest childcare costs because we provide the best childcare. With a ratio of 4:1 for 2 year olds, it is often difficult enough! Depending on the mix of those four children, a carer may need the support of another adult.
Raising ratios will mean that children in childcare settings will receive less personalised care, it will be harder to plan for a specific childs needs or developmental needs as there are so many other children to cater for.
The amount of accidents will go up, more children = less toys to go around and less attention to each child.
What matters in childcare is that the child you are caring for has a stable, comfortale and consistent envirnoment. If ratios do rise, the care will be less precise and each child will have to battle for attention from their carers.

Some of you speak about costs; in my opinion, I would be asking for a pay rise if I was expected to hold more children in my ratio. It's more work.

I love my job and feel blessed to be able to work with children whilst watching and helping them develop, but I feel my duty of care would be put under a great strain if this proposal goes through.

I think there are ways of managing childcare more efficently without compromising the happiness of the children. For example a team approach where one group nursery nurses oversee lunch another group sets out toys/ activites for the afternoon. Relaxing ratios would make it possible for some of the staff to have break while the younger children nap.

My daughters's nursery has children in lots of little rooms. I am sure it would be more efficent if all the children (except babies) had their meals in one room. All the mess from the meal would be in one place, it would be quicker to set up toys without having to childmind at the same time or have children in the room. I believe that having several staff watching the children would reduce the risk of choking. Even four years olds can choke on food. Some two year olds refuse need no help with feeding where as some older children find it hard. Development varies a lot between children.

Prehaps unskilled staff could do the cleaning up after messy play or in the dining room after feeding time at the zoo.

Prehaps we need to look at other countries to see efficient ways of working.

"Some of you speak about costs; in my opinion, I would be asking for a pay rise if I was expected to hold more children in my ratio. It's more work."

I think that paying childcare staff more is a good idea. It would attract brighter staff with better training. It is scandelous that many nursery nurses are paid so little.

"One thing which could improve early years education/childcare would be to provide more centralised support in implementing the EYFS. "

Dd's private nursery has tried to centralised planning and frankly it has not worked. You cannot have personalised learning centrally planned by someone who has never met the child or knows the building. I am sure there are schemes of work available, but the lesson plans still have to be adapated.

Not having several small rooms can help... for example, I have been in nurseries where they have had 2 main rooms - one for pre-school and the other for all those not attending the funded pre-school sessions. However that will not work for all nurseries - some are in purpose built buildings, others are in multi-use facilities (such as a community centre) and others are converted Victorian (or older) buildings. So each nursery needs to adapt things to the layout of their particular building.

ReallyTired - you quoted my idea about more centralised support for implementing the EYFS ....

I didn't mean in doing the planning for you as I agree it depends on the children's interests, but I think more could be done in looking at sharing good practice from one nursery to another and this could be centrally organised.
There could be more offered in terms of ideas and resources too.

I think the same is true for primary schools.

yes it's funded by the provincial tax and the rate is a fair bit higher than here - however the latest financial information states that the savings and extra revenue made by the government through more people being on the job market balances it out and the government is not technically loosing money out of subsidised childcare. Unemployment is 7.3% in the province, but Canada is not in recession and the country went through a balancing the deficit some 15 years ago and there were similar government cuts to here.

Anyway I think that the plan to change the ratios in nurseries is not going to reduce the cost of childcare by much. Already there are huge difference in fees across the country, and in London from one area to another. Where we live it's around £50 to £65 a day, and just around the corner in Ilford you can get childminders for as little as £25 a day. Rent is increasing, minimum wage is increasing, and the cost of electricity and gas is rocketing. The cost of food is increasing all the time. I think that some nurseries will reduce their fees but it will go back up within a very short time, and I am sure that many nurseries will not pass on any savings to their customers, and other nurseries will not increase the ratio and it will become their selling point.

Sorry I was replying to the question by Nannynick.

JugglingFromHereToThere

Primary and secondary schools have the QCA scheme of work which is suggested lessons plans for the entire national curriculum. I have no idea if this already exists for the foundation stage or not. Certainly there are plenty of schemes of work that can be bought, but it takes training, imagination and talent to implement them.

I would like to see childcare better interlinked with state eduation. Not all state school children have decent access to wrap around care at the moment. The level of red tape and the one to eight ratio puts many schools off. Lots of schools have a breakfast club but no after school club because it requires OFSTED registration.

olgaga I agree with what (I think) you are saying, which is that £50-60 a day is pretty cheap to look after something as precious as a child, and I'd like child carers to be paid more, but for me it's not the cost that's the issue but the fact it's not tax deductible. When I do my tax return I can set all kinds of things against tax from training courses to transport costs...but not the childcare that enables me to do my job. It is crazy.

I mean, other than the voucher system where the maximum amount (based on two parents using it) covers about 2 days of care on SE prices.

It is pure economics. Most parents cannot afford £50 to £60 a day to look after a child. I would also be brutal and ask how much of that £50 to £60 a day goes towards the child and how much goes in profit to private day nurseries.

In my experience the quality of childcare is not necessarily related to the cost. Many child carer providers are driven by greed rather than an interest for the child. One of the best pre schools I have had experience of was a charity. (seven years ago it was £6 for 3 hours and I believe its now £12 for 3 hours)

There are some outstanding pre schools, nurseries, childminders and utterly rubbish childcare providers.

Prehaps we need to ask ourselves what makes for a good nursery and happy children. Maybe we need to challenge our assumptions and look at research.

Britain may have the smallest ratios, but we don't have the best outcomes or the happiest children and the cost is prohibitive. I also think that maybe we have taken personalised care and being play based too far. Many children utterly relish the structure when they start reception.

thanks blueberry, more people in job market balancing out the cost of subsidising childcare sounds good. Wonder if the economics of that would work in the UK.

It wouldn't work if there are no jobs available... I suppose it would work if the country is not in recession. Reading more about various systems now and it looks to me that most countries that have subsidised childcare have a higher ratio than in the UK, but most require better qualification than here. In quebec it's a three year course, same in France and that's to work in a state nursery, I assume it's different if you're a private childminder.

In France the DEAP (to be a nursery nurse) is a 1 year post bac/CAP course and you then have the EJE (to be an EY teacher) which is at least 3 years post bac. The level of autonomy expected in the UK from people at an equivalent level is just so different.

The thing is, though, a lot of it comes back to state run childcare with a state controlled support network. I'm not sure Britain wants that.

Most nurseries have no plans to increase the number of spaces. They will just reduce the number of staff.

tensixtysix - yes, I expect redundanies will be made once the new staff: child ratios are brought in. Nurseries have an OFSTED regulation for max number of children in the setting at one time so I very much doubt more spaces would or even can be made.

My first thought on this was that higher ratio cod mean cheaper childcare but would nursery nurses pay increase? If you think about 21 3 year olds need only 2 members of staff instead of 3, then private nurseries will gain approx £70 a day in needing one less staff member (if we base it on a nursery nurse earning £7ph at a 10hr open day nursery). Who will benefit? The parents/staff/proprietor? I genuinely fear the answer to that question.

The real problem is there is no appetite for increasing taxpayer-funded subsidies for anything, let alone childcare. It just isn't going to happen.

Costs have increased over the past 5 years and wages have broadly stood still, so everything is more expensive - including childcare.

While it does seem expensive, the point I'm making is that in comparison with other costs it's actually very cheap! These proposals will certainly not make it any cheaper. All it will do is help some struggling nurseries avoid going out of business.

Returning to work after having a baby will soon be the preserve of high-earning professionals or those who have family members who can step in and do it for expenses only.

I think that as with many of this Government's policies, there's a degree of social engineering at play.

I work in a nursery and know first hand that raising the ratio will not benefit children or staff. it will not give child care workers a better wage and will not reduce childcare costs.As other people have pointed out the only people to benefit from this change would be nursery owners themselves.
Over the last few years we have seen many changes with the Eyfs ,safeguarding of children and the everychild matters framework all which place emphasis on the care of children being paramount ,looking at childrens individual needs stages of development and cater for them by increasing the ratio how are staff members able to do this .Its unfair to put children in an environment that will resemble a cattle farm where one to one attention will become a thing of the past .also unfair on staff who care for these children and wish to do the best by them to be put under such immense pressure.

I'll admit I haven't caught up with the whole thread but is Lizz Truss still coming on for the webchat or has she bottled it?

I confess I haven't read the whole thread, but FWIW, I think that it doesn't matter how bloody qualified you are, with young children you need high adult:child ratios. This proposal is a disaster!

I think its easy to forget that children start school at seven years old in Germany and Sweden. A child who is six or seven needs no where near as much attention as a two year old. I believe that Sweden and Germany use mixed age groups. Children over the age of four are extreme self sufficient and just need and adult in the background. These countries have generous maternity leave so there are far fewer babies.

In the UK very few nursery children are over the age of four. We need higher ratios as our children are so young.

I grew up in France, my 3 year old nephew goes to school in France. although school is not compulsory until the age of 6, there is no alternative childcare from the age of 3 so everybody has to go to school (unless the mum stays at home, which is very rare in France). My nephew at 2 years 9 months, was thrown in a class of 30, 3 year olds with only 2 adults: a qualified teacher and a teaching assistant. Having experienced the top quality care that my children had received in England in a pre-school with a low adult to children ratio, I can honestly say that the English have nothing to envy the French on this matter.