Learning & Development: Babies - Home and away

Many of the issues currently being debated in nursery education were being debated 90 years ago. However, this is not the case for babies, who then had barely any presence on the public early education and childcare agenda.

Babies were certainly being cared for outside the family a hundred years ago through private arrangements. Some of that care was no doubt very good, but ‘baby farming’, collective care in appallingly neglectful and abusive circumstances, was notorious.

Pioneering educators recognised the importance of nursery education for two-year-olds upwards by the turn of the 20th century and before, but official attitude was that this was a private matter for families. At the end of the Second World War, a joint Ministries of Health and Education circular could not have been more explicit that the ‘right place for under-twos was at home with their mothers’.

Government interest was minimal. The autonomy and responsibility of the family to manage childcare arrangements on its own was seen as sacred. Given the low status, poor pay and lack of training and support for those working professionally with babies today, many may ask whether much has changed.

Now, only a little more than half a century later, what a U-turn there has been in government policy, seen particularly in the targeting of nursery places at so called ‘vulnerable two-year-olds’ and the availability of places from early in children’s first year.

Most nurseries, particularly in the private sector, now offer places for babies, for the full working day of parents. When I first started work researching babies’ relationships in nursery 25 years ago, the private nursery sector was just beginning its expansion. Yet while the expansion was welcomed, it also caused anxiety.

Articles regularly arose in the media raising the same kinds of question, ‘Is nursery bad for babies?’ In America, the debates between those cast as on the side of the baby and those seen as committed to equality of opportunity for mothers became so passionate they were dubbed the ‘infant daycare wars’.

Fortunately, through the work of researchers, campaigning early childhood organisations and political advocates, this simplistic polarisation has now moved on. Campaigning and research efforts have for a long time been focused on the much more optimistic question, ‘What kind of nursery provides the best opportunities for babies and families?’

The Children Act 1989 was a milestone in answering that question. The guidance that accompanied the Act laid down much of the principle and detail of what matters. It was skilfully negotiated by civil servants and underpinned by research, but it would never have happened without the passionately argued advocacy of organisations such as the National Children’s Bureau and Early Education.

RESPECTFUL PEDAGOGY

The principles of respectful pedagogy with babies are now familiar – small group sizes, good ratios, well-trained and supported staff, anti-discriminatory practice, heuristic sensory play and, most of all, consistent, responsive and individual attention from practitioners.

On the ground, Elinor Goldschmied, a Froebelian-trained educator, gave practical meaning to these principles. Her work on the Treasure Basket and the key person approach during the last two decades of the 20th century inspired, and is still inspiring, generations of practitioners.

Contemporary pioneers are continuing to build on her legacy. Jools Page’s work on ‘Professional Love’ in nursery is one example. Professional development work on implementing the key person approach, with all its complexities, is another. Sacha Powell and Kathy Goouch have raised the profile of pedagogy with babies through the Baby Room project and series of conferences, and Julian Grenier is developing models of supervision and staff support.

So is it a question of ‘job done’ on the baby front? Sadly, no. Despite the principled foundations that have been laid for work with babies, a combination of austerity, deregulation, the continuing low status of work with babies and the lack of understanding of its intellectual and emotional complexity still hold us back. Even with advances in the neuroscience of infancy and cross-party reports such as the 1001 Critical Days campaign, there is massive underinvestment in nursery provision for babies.

If hard-nosed neuroscience and such reports are not on their own changing the conditions in which nursery practitioners work with babies, what will make the difference? Once again, it is organisations on the ground, Early Education, the Froebel Trust, TACTYC and many more, making the case persistently and rationally, collectively and individually through the energies and networks of their members that will take us forward. When even the 1:3 ratio for babies, already asking too much, was being pushed to 1:4, it was a combination of parents and campaigning early childhood organisations that led politicians to see sense.

As the past two articles in this series have vividly shown (see box), what a lot has been achieved through tireless campaigning to support and establish the network of nursery schools, the unique contribution they make to young children and to the communities in which they are located.

IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES

My hope is that organisations that have harnessed, nurtured and channelled their energies so effectively will increasingly turn their efforts to the challenges of pedagogy with babies. Four challenges are pressing:

Respectful skin-to-skin touch is fundamental for babies but still a minefield for practitioners. Why is it so problematic to combine this vital physical holding and touch with effective safeguarding?

Key-person practice to facilitate emotional bonds that help babies feel ‘held in mind’ (one of Elinor Goldschmied’s favourite phrases) but that are not claustrophobic or restrictive of babies’ explorations is brilliantly developed in some settings, but why is it not more widespread?

Making such close professional relationships with the babies of others is work of the most sophisticated and delicate nature if it is to be respectful of parents’ feelings and professional boundaries – why are so many practitioners still expected to manage this with little, if any, opportunity to talk through their day-to-day relationships with children and families?

Despite the efforts of many leaders and managers to raise the status of work with babies, why does it still have such a ‘taken for granted’ nature?

MORE INFORMATION

‘Mixed feelings’ by Dr Peter Elfer (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1151768/positive-relationships-emotion-mixed-feelings)

‘A short history of…early education’ by Wendy Scott (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1149317/eyfs-practice-short-history-education)

‘Elinor Goldschmied – a life revisited’ by Dr Jacqui Cousins, Anita M Hughes and Dorothy Y Selleck (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1143808/learning-development-elinor-goldschmied-life-revisited)

‘Love, love, love’ by Dr Jools Page (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/opinion/1152266/love-love-love)

Related Nursery World series are at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/attachment and www.nurseryworld.co.uk/key-people

Peter Elfer is a vice-president of Early Education, a trustee of the Froebel Trust and a researcher at the University of Roehampton. Early Education is now offering the Key Times Level 4 Certificate in Developing Practice and Provision for 0- to 3-year-olds (see www.early-education.org.uk/certificate for details).

PAST AND PRESENT

Look out for the other articles in this series about early years pedagogy and the contribution of nursery schools to advancing best practice. All the authors are leading figures within the early years sector.

Published so far are:

‘Over time’ by Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of Early Education (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1157960/learning-development-early-education-over-time).

‘Nursery Schools: roots and new shoots’ by Sally Jaeckle, early years services manager at Bristol City Council; Sandra Mathers, Families, Effective Learning and Literacy (FELL) research group, University of Oxford; and Prof Chris Pascal, Centre for Research in Early Childhood (CREC) (www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1158432/nursery-schools-roots-and-new-shoots).

Forthcoming articles – to be published online or in Nursery World over the coming months – are:

‘Susan Isaacs and the Chelsea Open Air Nursery: biophilia andthe affordances of the great outdoors’ by early years consultants and trainers Kathryn Solly and Dr Sue Allingham.

‘Charlotte Mason, the McMillan sisters and the Early Nursery Teacher Training Schools as a model for today’ by Prof Cathy Nutbrown, head of the School of Education, University of Sheffield.

‘Early years subversives and radicals: Froebel and non-conformity’ by early years consultants Helen Moylett and Linda Pound.

‘The early childhood tradition in Scotland: then and now’ by Aline-Wendy Dunlop, visiting professor, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

‘Bertrand Russell’s perspectives on early childhood’ by Prof Tony Bertram, CREC.

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