Workforce Strategy, Part 4: Careers - Getting in early

Does anyone remember actually receiving useful careers advice at school? If any at all? The service wasn't mandatory until 2014, and there are now attempts to turn it from impersonal tick-box exercise to a constructive attempt to open up the world of work. For more disadvantaged pupils, good information can mean a foot on the ladder.

Careers provision for young people continues to be ‘patchy and inadequate’, according to the Government’s own statutory guidance on the issue. It is partially attributable for the country’s skills shortage, MPs have said. The long-awaited careers strategy, first scheduled for 2016 and now expected this autumn, is one in a long line of attempts to improve things.

The publication of this strategy intersects with the Government’s plans for promoting early education and childcare as a career, as laid out in the Workforce Strategy. With commitments to work with careers organisations, schools and Job Centre Plus work coaches, one aim is to raise awareness of the variety of roles available.

LACK OF EXPERTISE

Schools now have to secure access to independent and impartial careers advice for their pupils in years 9 to 11 from a sometimes confusing marketplace of careers advisers. What advice is given is often from people who are not clued up on the early years sector. ‘From our experience, the careers organisations had no idea of the extent of the recruitment issues being faced in the sector,’ says Beverly Munden, franchise director at Tinies, which is running a campaign to promote childcare as a career (see box). Ceeda’s latest survey shows that half of all settings have a shortage of staff.

In fact, a recent report from the Careers and Enterprise Company, a Government-backed network connecting schools and employers, found that one in five schools is not meeting any of a set of good-practice benchmarks. ‘Schools are, however, doing better than they were in 2014,’ says Tristram Hooley, the organisation’s director of research. ‘For example, schools might be running a lot of employer talks, bringing in different people from the word of work, but not starting as early as they should – they should be starting in Years 7 or 8.’

Schools with sixth forms have consistently been found to be more narrowly university-focused than those without. ‘Young people are not being told about opportunities in work-related learning such as apprenticeships or further education, which has an impact on certain types of sector such as early years,’ explains Mr Hooley. There is a new statutory duty on schools to inform young people about apprenticeships.

While apprenticeships can benefit nurseries by giving them the chance to mould staff, there are challenges. ‘In the early years sector, under-17s cannot be used in statutory staff:child ratios so are already an extra cost for employers, and any additional costs could discourage investment in young people,’ says Stella Ziolkowski, director of quality and workforce development at the NDNA. ‘In addition, nurseries with less than a £3m wage bill would have to pay 10 per cent of the apprenticeship costs.’

GETTING BETTER?

In a 2016 report, Getting Ready for Work, Ofsted found that schools appear to be getting better at promoting apprenticeships. ‘However, we were concerned that the extent to which schools used their curriculum to prepare pupils for the world of work was largely dependent on whether school leaders considered [this] to be a priority,’ says a spokesperson.

The Government is keen to encourage the sector to promote careers in the early years. ‘The first level would be to go in and give a talk about your sector,’ says Mr Hooley. ‘On a higher level, employers could input into our Enterprise Adviser Scheme, where clusters of schools are supported by a senior business volunteer who helps unlock relationships with other employers in the area.’

Mr Hooley encourages small nurseries to get involved, as well as nursery chains. ‘More people work in small and medium businesses, but we are disproportionately showing young people careers in corporations and large-scale businesses,’ he says. The NDNA says this is already happening to a certain extent, with Ms Ziolkowski adding, ‘We would recommend nurseries linking with their local secondary schools as a matter of course.’

Work experience is one method. ‘Nurseries must remember that they will need to dedicate time to supporting the work experience student and often have to rota in additional staff to work with them,’ says Ms Ziolkowski. ‘Early years settings can be put off offering work placements to under-16s due to the perception of the bureaucracy involved being too burdensome. However, the Health and Safety Executive says that there should be no issue as long as the employer carries out an effective risk assessment beforehand.’

New T-levels, the equivalent of technical A-levels, will require placements of 50 working days. ‘A 10-week placement will give students the chance to get some meaningful, hands-on experience,’ suggests Ms Ziolkowski. ‘If they eventually decide on a career in childcare, the likelihood is they will want to return to the same nursery when they are ready to take up employment. It also gives the nursery the chance to ‘sample’ that person to see if they are right for the setting.’

FURTHER ENCOURAGEMENT

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is developing resources to train ‘work coaches’ from job centres about opportunities in the childcare sector. Work coaches support people on benefits to identify work opportunities. The coaches will also encourage people on benefits to move into self-employment by ‘establishing a sustainable childcare business’, if that seems financially viable.

Whether the move helps to address the fact that the number of childminders has dropped by nearly a quarter over the past five years remains to be seen. While welcoming the move, PACEY chief executive Liz Bayram said, ‘It is absolutely crucial that all prospective members of the early years workforce are given a realistic appraisal of what it is like to work in the sector. DWP has attempted this approach in the past with limited results. This is because childminding not only demands great knowledge and skill in supporting young children’s development but also business acumen.’

PACEY is currently working with the DWP to help it understand the realities of working as a childminder.

While welcoming the Government’s intentions to make more information available about a career in early years, many in the sector feel this is not tackling the underlying problem of status and pay. ‘Fundamentally I believe there has to be a switch in the public perception of the value of childcarers to the economy, and to how they enrich the lives of future generations,’ says Ms Munden. ‘If the profession were held in higher esteem, then this in turn would have a knock-on effect as to how a career in the sector is presented and received as a career choice to young people in schools.’

CASE STUDY: INSPIRING A FUTURE IN CHILDCARE

In April this year, childcare company Tinies, which runs over 30 childcare recruitment agencies across the UK, launched the Inspiring a Future in Childcare campaign. The campaign is supported by organisations including Busy Bees, Careers Enterprise Company, sector bodies and the Department for Education.

Beverly Munden, franchise director at Tinies, said one of the main goals this year has been to inspire volunteers to engage with schools, working with the charity Education and Employers. ‘Through their specialist volunteering platform, we want to create opportunities in schools where childcarers can actively share their experiences with young people,’ says Ms Munden. ‘In particular we would like to encourage children in Year 8 and Year 9, or S4 in Scotland, to consider a career in childcare, before they decide which subjects they wish to study as a pathway to their future careers. We also want to raise awareness of the recruitment challenges we face in the sector among teachers and careers professionals, in the hope they will start to include early years professionals in future careers events.’

The campaign aim for 2018 will be to encourage nurseries to make more work experience opportunities available to young people. ‘Earlier this year we started working with Fair Train, the national accredited body for work experience, and we are pursuing accreditation with them,’ says Ms Munden. ‘We are also planning an event with the DfE and Education and Employers to showcase the variety of childcare roles that exist in the marketplace, and will show how schools can replicate the event in their own areas.’

For the rest of the articles in this series, see our Workforce Strategy Management Guide