Nursery workers aren't educated enough...

[letseatgrandma]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17496323

What do you make of this? The suggestion is that poorly qualified/achieving teenagers tend to head towards a job in childcare or hairdressing whereas the report feels that standards of literacy/numeracy should be higher for those working with young children.

Presumably if the requirements for childrcare jobs change, the wages will need to be higher (and there is no money?!)? Where should the low achieving secondary school children aim to have a job?

I think if I had a very small child in nursery (not preschool) I'd be more concerned that there were a good number of caring hands-on people than whether all of them had good literacy levels. Obviously you'd want some of the staff to be able to read stories etc but for the tinies, you don't need anything close to a degree education to feed, cuddle, play peek-a-boo and wipe bums.

If all workers without formal qualifications are excluded, and all nursery work becomes higher status and higher paid then either the ratios would fall or prices would go up - its hard to square that circle of childcare being affordable by people who themselves may be on modest incomes.

Surely you need a mix - analagous to care homes where you should have domestic staff, care assistants and highly trained nurses - a range of skills and abilities but plenty of them?

Moving on to preschool, the balance should shift.

All DCs should have high quality childcare.

I would agree entirely soverylucky-I most definitely didn't want any formal learning. I did however want high quality staff.

agree x 100000000, soverylucky.

As long as a nursery worker can read dosage instructions who cares? I'll take the warm, engaged nursery worker who's a natural with littlies but can't spell for toffee over the one who can do quadratic equations in her head but does childcare by numbers too.

All this report seems to be saying is 'less academic people gravitate toward jobs where being academic isn't the be all and end all.' which seems pretty bleeding obvious, not to mention appropriate, to me.

I don't understand this idea that not having many formal qualifications = low quality care.

People who are articulate, bright, funny, caring, able, patient, etc etc often don't have many formal qualifications. I don't believe that it is right to exclude them from this line of work. The current system of attaining qualifications as you are working seems like a good one - keeping up to date and developing skills is good for everyone.

I agree really manatee. The people who work at my DD's nursery are so kind, patient, caring, demonstrative with the children, it's lovely. I couldn't give a monkeys if they speak with an accent or put "there" instead of "their" in her report home. They aren't teaching her to spell.

Anyone else a bit at this in the OP link?

She quotes one academic who says higher standards are demanded of people working on their own with animals, than of those left alone with a baby.

OMG.... my dog spends his holidays with people who (AFAIK) have no qualifications at all. I'd be curious to know what this 'working with animals' consisted of - one suspects a comparison of apples and oranges.

And, of course, no standards at all are demanded of most of those 'left alone with a baby' i.e. parents.

Remember that report that came out saying that grandparents gave low standard care when looking after their grandchildren? They conceded that children cared for by GPs had wider vocabularies than those in nurseries, but otherwise said they were a bit rubbish.

Then it turned out they were measuring them against the early years foundation thingy, which clearly GPs won't be adhering to, what with not knowing about it and all.

I think I just feel the most important thing for preschoolers is to feel that the people who are looking after them care for them, and are kind, and patient, and all of that stuff. The ability to identify different parts of speech or perform long division is secondary.

Primary school very different obv. There I want them conjugating their verbs left, right and centre and capable of performing complex calculations with a slide rule

Grimma
vets?

I just feel that if you are bright whether with qualifications or without you can put those skills to good use in working with the under 5s. Young children are interesting to work with and benefit from being with skilled, thoughtful, and engaged adults.

I agree with the poster who suggested there should be a variety of people working in this field.

Articulacy is one thing I really do care about though. I want nursery staff and CMs to be chatty and clear in their speech with a wide range of vocabulary. IME most nursery staff are fine on that front - but I've interviewed some shockingly inarticulate would-be nannies, (mostly due to EAL).

I also want child carers to have clear and accurate sentence construction in addition to a wide vocabulary...

Whether people are articulate or not is a much better sign of how "bright" they are than whether or not they have a certain piece of paper.

Ditto sharp wit.

Erm, I'd say nursery workers weren't paid enough. There's a self fulfilling prophecy there.

Really, unless early years is properly funded by the government we're going to be in this situation.

One observation of mine about any vocational job which is being 'upgraded' to be a more academic role is this, those who leave full time education without any qualifications at the age of sixteen will still have had around twelve years of education. How the hell can you expect another few years of education to make any difference to them?

As for whether I would prefer my child to be looked after by more educated staff, the answer can only be a maybe. I know plenty of poorly educated people who are fantastic with young kids, and plenty that are hopeless too. Likewise, the same is true with highly educated people. I don't think that being good with children is something that can be taught.

At the end of the day, when you are allowed to have as many kids as you want without having to demonstrate to the state that you even have the ability to sit the right way up on a toilet seat, why must it be mandatory that you have a qualification to change a nappy, feed a child or read them a story?

Yes, I agree with that daytoday

• I think considering the pay on offer it is amazing how skilled and committed the early years workforce is.

I think "being good with children" like most skills is something which can be taught and learnt. Perhaps it's just that many people learn the skills needed from others in a very natural way as they grow up in community with those around them.

I do think you become better at being with children and interacting with them with practice and reflection though, whether in formal education and training or in a more hands-on situation.

The pay on offer is shocking IMO.

Thing is that many individuals and couples can't afford more. Many can't even afford to pay what it is at the moment and so can't work.

The system needs overhauling in some way, but I can't see it happening.

The problem is the expectations from OFSTED.They do seem to pile on more and more expectations re-literacy at a young age and record keeping.As I said before this needs to be done properly or not at all.

Helping a child learn to write his name-if you don't show them from day 1 where to start when forming say a H or an 'a' it takes a long time to un-teach further down the line.

Ditto reading stories expression is extremely important.If kids think at home/nursery that reading a story in a monotone is the way to go that is what they'll do.

There is also the comprehension issue,asking kids what a tricky,word means etc.

Then there is the phonics issue,it's crucial that they are taught correctly without an 'u" shoved on the end of every other sound.

Then there is record keeping/reports/plans.You're expected to keep them for every child which involves a lot of work and each child is supposed to build and grow from them.Said records are supposed to inform other settings and need to be accurate.Seriously I've done them and OFSTED expect a lot,they are not the type of thing that anybody could do properly without a good grasp of English.

Either OFSTED have got to back off completely(not likely)or produce the staff that can do the above competently. Doing a poor job is worse than not doing a lot of the above at all imvho.

I think we should look to see how things are done in Scandinavia. There was an interesting programme on this recently - possibly Panorama ?

I think they have got things about right so we should look to them for a model of how we might develop things here.

In scandinavia IIRC childcare is heavily subsidised. And they pay a shedload of tax.

That's how they do it.

Money is the key.