To want DS to go to nursery full time...?

[LadyOfWaffle]

He went from 3 mornings to 5 mornings over the last half term and is starting a new nursery on Monday that's 5 afternoons, but they have started a lunctime club so you can join a morning and an afternoon together. I am a SAHM but DS seems to need so much more than I can give him (he loves school so so much) and TBH I could do with the longer break to look after DS2 (who seems to take second place abit?) and start some college work. He has just turned 3, which makes me feel like I am coping out abit IYSWIM... I just feel guilty for even dreaming thinking about it.

Take a look at the video [http://www.teachers.tv/video/browser/501/1694 how they do it in Sweden] it shows the very different style of nursery provision. More staff ~ setting very like home ~ small "family" units playing together ...

and fairymum it could be argued that Sweden is full of people with issues ~ look at the suicide rate...

mrz, there are different types of nurseries in Sweden. The nurseries I have used in London actually have more staff per child and smaller units than the ones my friends use in Sweden. The negative aspect of British nurseries I have seen is the huge cost. I pay £1200 per child a month for mine.

mrz, I don't think anyone considers Britain a child-friendly country to grow up in, do they?

Also, have you actual experience of Swedish or British nurseries?

Yes I'm a teacher (in a FSU) and had to opportunity to look at Scandinavian Early Years provision as part of my MA studies.

I would question the qualifications of the staff in the UK nurseries with large adult - child ratios.

Oh good god, at that age I used to dream of putting my son in nursery for more than the 3 mornings he was at playgroup, to give me some respite from his extremely demanding engaging personality and madcap ideas of fun. I also dreamed of having a padded cell constructed for him so that I could have a cup of tea in peace without him requiring hospital treatment afterwards...

duchess as the mother of an ASD/ADHD child I've got the Tshirt

mrz- he's 15.5 now, and has made it to this age with only a few scars to show for it, an extremely strong physique, and no formal diagnosis of anything- although we read through an ADHD checklist the other day and realised he ticked most of the boxes. We all thought it was hysterically funny. He's much much calmer now, but by god does he still need a lot of exercise. He did 10 Tors last year (35 miles in 36 hours) and could have walked another 10 miles when he came off the moor. Even at 2 I had to make sure he walked at least 2 or 3 miles a day to be sure he'd go to sleep by 11pm.

mrz, in our nursery there is a 1 adult to 3 children ratio in the baby and toddler-units. You don't get a better ratio in Swedish nurseries, on the contrary. I would say Scandinavian children are left to play freely with less supervision than in UK nurseries. For example, in the nursery across my sister's house you will see 18 month-olds by themselves in the sandpit eating a mixture of sand and snot and hitting eachother in the head with spades, a luxury my own children don't have as I think supervision is far too tight in British nurseries.

I suspect the suicide rate in Sweden has more to do with the very short hours of daylight in winter than it does the nursery provision.

I work 2 days a week in a reception class and I can say almost without exception the children with serious behavioural problems are the ones who have spent long hours in nurseries.
Somebody said reseerch was divided on the issue of nurseries.But I think it is pretty united on the idea that long nursery hours are not good.

A ratio of 1-3 is the legal requirement for a baby /toddler room. I wonder what level of qualification the staff have ... most nurseries employ level 2 staff but some have unqualified staff to keep costs low but charge parents huge amounts.
In England for 3+ year old children the legal requirement is 1-13 even in Wales the ratio is 1-8.

There is a great deal of research comparing the UK system with other countries including Scandinavia

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6525039.stm nursery hours linked to anti social behaviour]

ratios are one thing, and yes, vital, but ime (and I do have lots of it), staff in day nurseries are often overwhelmingly unqualified, unmotivated and horrifically underpaid. School or session nurseries are generally better as councils regulate the proportion of unqualified staff, regulations for private nurseries are less rigid.

I think a distinction needs to be drawn between the op who, on reflection, is considering putting her child into more time of sessional nursery, rather than dozens more hours in a day nursery.

Then the curriculum stuff needs to be considered when looking at differences across countries. Our policies dictate a very structured approach to early years care. And as Early Years only applies up to age 5 it has never had the attention it needs. In countries where the school starting age is nearer to 7 a lot more time and effort has been put into ensuring early years is appropriate and working. Our early years is a mess, and not designed around the needs of small children. In Sweden, for example, they do actually have a much better understanding of this age group.

mrz -

"The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said that it was important to recognise that the research findings related to 800 children attending nurseries located in areas of disadvantage. "

and
"The study also found that good quality provision - better average qualification levels of staff and presence of a qualified teacher, significantly improves levels of social and emotional development and reduces the risk of children developing negative behaviours."

From that study you can't make the causal linke that more nursery hours = more anti-social behaviour. There may be a correlation, but the fact that the nurseries were in areas of deprivation is more likely to have had a related effect?

Katiestar: "I work 2 days a week in a reception class and I can I can say almost without exception the children with serious behavioural problems are the ones who have spent long hours in nurseries."

"Serious behavioural problems" in reception, no less! Not because they are from deprived or disruptive family backgrounds but because of long hours nursery, you say. What are you smoking, lady?

I know lots of children who have attended ft nursery since a young age, all my dcs' contemporaries BTW. I will try to look for "serious behavioural problems" in them and my dcs, really I will, look very very hard.

blueshoes.

I actually find the thought of someone with such poor reasoning skills as Katiestar working in a reception class far scarier than any so-called 'evidence' about the perils of nursery!

NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2005). Early Child Care and Children's Development in the Primary Grades: Follow-Up Results from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care.. American Educational Research Journal, 42 (3).

Associations between early child care and children?s functioning during the primary grades were examined in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Some relations, which had previously been detected prior to school entry, were maintained through the end of third grade. Higher quality child care continued to be linked with higher scores on standardized tests of math and reading achievement and of memory through third grade. More time periods of center care were associated with better memory, but also with more conflictual relationships with teachers and mothers. Some new associations were detected: More hours of child care were linked to poorer work habits and poorer social skills through third grade. Other effects, such as relations between amount of care and externalizing behaviors and teacher-child conflict, decreased during the primary grades and were not significant in Grade 3. These findings support the relative independence of quality, quantity, and type of child care in relation to child developmental outcomes.

and so on..
NICHD ECCRN. (2008). Social Competence with Peers in Third Grade: Associations with Earlier Peer Experiences in Childcare. Social Development, 17 (3).

The early developmental antecedents of individual differences in children's social functioning with peers in third grade were examined using longitudinal data from the large-scale National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study of early child care. In a sample of 1,364 children, with family and child factors controlled, the frequency of positive and negative peer interactions in childcare between 24 and 54 months and the number of hours spent in childcare peer groups of different sizes (alone, dyad, small, medium, large) predicted third graders' peer competence at three levels of analysis: individual social skills, dyadic friendships, and peer-group acceptance. Children who had more positive experiences with peers in childcare had better social and communicative skills with peers in third grade, were more sociable and co-operative and less aggressive, had more close friends, and were more accepted and popular. Children with more frequent negative experiences with peers in childcare were more aggressive in third grade, had lower social and communicative skills, and reported having fewer friends. When children spent more time in small-sized peer groups in childcare (four or fewer children at 24 months of age up to seven or fewer at 54 months), they were more sociable and co-operative in third grade, but their teachers rated them as more aggressive, suggesting that such children may be more socially outgoing and active both positively and negatively. Like those who spent more time in small peer groups, children who spent more hours in medium-sized groups received higher ratings for peer aggression by their third-grade teachers. Children who spent more time with one other child in childcare or in small peer groups had fewer classroom friends in third grade as reported by the teacher but not according to maternal report or self-report. There were no significant associations between the amount of time children spent in large childcare-based peer groups and third-grade peer social competence.

mrz, I would never send my 3 year-old to be looked after together with 13 other 3 year-olds by one carer. It might be the legal requirement, it doesn't mean that this is how it is in all nurseries and as children we don't sleepwalk into our childcare arrangments. Shocking I know, but I have even checked qualifications of staff in our nursery!

"There is a great deal of research comparing the UK system with other countries including Scandinavia " And?

mum23monkeys ,"In Sweden, for example, they do actually have a much better understanding of this age group."

Really? How exactly? You keep saying this and as a Swedish person who attended FT nursery from 3 months and have sent 4 children to British nurseries, I want to know what you know which I don't?

I meant, as parent of children...LOL

hmm difficult one

i think as a woman who has chosen to be sahm that home is where my dcs prefer to be...mine only i hasten to add others may feel different

by 3 yrs my ds is feisty and demanding and enjoys nursery 2 days ...it does exhaust him though and i also feel guilt

by pre school year i think it is good to prepare child - maybe 3 -4 days ....

if i were sahm i would think 5 full days was for me not dc

Fairymum I would be interested to know the level of qualification of staff as someone who mentors students as part of my role. In my area managers of Day Nurseries are usually level 3 qualified.

The government has promised all graduate leaders but as someone who mentors the foundation degree students I am alarmed at the lack of rigour of the course.

I have to support Katiestar's view to an extent. The children we encounter with severe behavioural problems (only 2 children with what I would judge extreme behaviour without any underlying SEN in the last 4 years) have professional parents (so not deprived in the traditional sense) but have spent long hours in day care from a very young age other children with similar background display behavioural problems but not so extreme. This opinion is echoed by many teachers across the country.

In this weeks Times Ed teaching unions are warning that extending nursery hours in schools may lead to a decline in standards of care and learning.

mrz, I am still waiting to find out what makes British nurseries and Swedish nurseries so different. Why is it that British children apparently get behavioural problems and Swedish children don't from FT nursery?

What do you mean by extending nursery hours in "schools"?