Nearly everyone cherishes an idea of 'the good old days', but has the march of time always been towards progress for long-established nursery groups, large and small?
'Looking back to the beginning more than 20 years ago, I only remember laughing all day long and that paperwork was limited,' says Lynda Gostelow, operations director for the 41 nurseries of the Childbase Partnership. 'Reports were simply brief notes on individual "activity scrapbooks" and there were cosy, end-of day chats with parents.
'Parents' expectations of childcare were very different. Most just wanted a clean, safe and fun environment with kindly carers - the "home from home" approach.'
Record-keeping and regulation are the most obvious markers by which many providers measure their journey from past to present. Zoe Raven, managing director at Acorn Childcare, which she founded in 1989, says, 'There's a lot of paperwork now because everyone is scared to death of legislation. Regulations have changed from when nurseries were under social services, whose role was different from Ofsted. Social services had advisers you could go to for support, not just inspections.'
That view is echoed by Sue Ranson, founder and director of Coombe Valley nurseries, which started in 1990. 'Back then, we had a social services person we saw every year, and she knew us well,' she recalls. 'Now everyone is much more worried about what they're doing. People who are perfectly capable of working with children are thinking, "Have I got a tick in this box, have I met that standard?" They don't want to do anything wrong for Ofsted.'
But the past was not really so simple, notes Ms Gostelow. 'There wasn't a level playing field for early years providers, as standard requirements were open to interpretation by different councils. Nurseries just a few miles apart could be subject to differing criteria and priorities.'
FAMILY EXPECTATIONS
The expectations of parents is often considered to be one of the main drivers of change at nurseries over the decades - but are parents just responding to changing times too?
It must be remembered that many nurseries were begun by parents who couldn't find the childcare they wanted. Maria Keaveney-Jessiman, for example, opened the first of her family-run Eveline day nurseries and nursery schools in 1966, and named them after her young daughter.
She says, 'It was an anxious time and worrying period because of people's attitudes and the stigma attached to the working mother who left her child to be cared for - she was a "bad mother".'
Ms Raven concurs. 'There was a stigma 20 years ago about young babies being in nursery, but that was when mothers had to go back to work earlier - maternity leave has since become longer. There is not such a stigma now about mothers going back to work.'
Childcare providers have always found themselves performing a juggling act between parents' needs, entitlements and expectations. Maternity rights and parental leave have grown, while children enter school at earlier ages. Parents are armed with Ofsted inspection reports and school league tables, though they may not be able to count on getting into their local primary school. And now that working mothers are commonplace, many parents are suddenly being made redundant at work and are having to give up paid childcare.
'Twenty years ago, when nurseries were smaller, the parents we had were people who were quite well off and sent their children for, say, three days because it was good for the child, not because they were working,' says Ms Ranson. 'Now, parents expect to have any hours they want and they expect flexibility as a right, with the free entitlement. There's a pressure for 8am to 6pm hours, and at the same time employers are supposed to give parents more family-friendly work hours.'
Ms Raven says that when Acorn Childcare started, she knew of ony one local nursery and that only took full-time children. 'Now, you wouldn't survive if you didn't offer part-time hours,' she says.
'Today, parents are better informed. They're aware of ratios and they're more demanding about what children should be doing and of what kind of provision we should be offering, and that's a good thing. Once upon a time parents didn't even come into the nursery - now they want to get involved. Children's centres have had an impact on this because they involve multi-agency working.
'Now we also have the benefits of email, websites and social media for communicating with parents. Occasionally that can backfire, but generally it's a good thing.'
STAFF TRAINING
Ms Keaveney-Jessiman welcomes the greater availability of training for early years staff of all ages, and agrees that they are now more knowledgeable and child-centred. However, she says, 'I don't approve of the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) requirement. Staff do not always have to be highly qualified to work in a childcare setting.'
Ms Gostelow worked at the very first Childbase nursery 23 years ago, having done the NNEB, which many in the early years sector still consider the gold standard qualification. But she believes raising qualifications criteria today is 'a minefield'.
She explains, 'We have some very good practitioners who have been with us for a long time, but the prospect that they should not be counted in staff ratios presents us with a real danger that we will lose them because they have neither the desire or the inclination to train for a job they have been doing for years. Experience, in-house training, mentoring and support given to these staff over the years doesn't count, and it should.'
She says that Childbase prides itself on recruiting the best and keeping them, but achieving a balance between fresh ideas and experience comes at a price. 'The average age of our employees is 33 and we have some who have been with us for between ten and 15 years, which is fantastic,' she says.
'The expectations of what is required of students needs to be managed properly. It's difficult to ignore the possibility, particularly in the present economic climate, that the emphasis is on filling courses and not on the quality of the student or qualification at the end. Too many students have unreal expectations about the work involved for these courses.'
Ms Raven believes the NNEB was good, but got devalued. 'I'm sure the new Level 3 will be as effective,' she says. 'But it's the leaders and managers in each setting that need to be more qualified, whether they're EYPs or whatever. You need an extra depth of understanding in some staff.'
Ms Ranson, who is a qualified teacher, lecturer and EYP, says, 'Ever since Coombe Valley started 20 years ago, we haven't had any staff under Level 3 and most are now Level 4. The Nutbrown review is just catching up.
'I recently interviewed a newly-qualified person who had a BTEC with distinction, and I asked her if she could tell me about a learning theorist. She couldn't even name Piaget. Years ago, nursery staff were generally expected to have O Levels in English and maths, but we still get Level 3 people who are not very competent in written English.
'EYPS is not really a qualification - more a process of assessing where you are. You can't say it's the equivalent of Qualified Teacher Status. The old NNEB was a more prescriptive training and had more expectation of common sense. I'm not fussed about bringing the NNEB back, but there just needs to be more stringent standards.'
Yet Ms Raven believes that the professionalisation of early years staff has been the biggest change of all in her time. 'Twenty years ago, we didn't have any graduates working with us. So much training wasn't available - staff did their NNEB, or a course in first aid and child protection with the local authority, and that was it. The level of qualifications of staff has professionalised the practice and lifted the level of care and education provided,' she says.
'My current childcare manager came here as a 16-year-old Youth Training Scheme trainee, and the manager at my nursery that gained outstanding all round had been a childminder who came with no qualifications. Now she's done a foundation degree and she's got an outstanding nursery.'
However, she stresses there needs to be a way for people to come in and learn and develop on the job, especially since not everybody can go to college.
FUN FACTOR
One thing that hasn't changed is young children themselves. Providers point to nursery children engaged in the same type of activities, with the same durable equipment, over the decades. But is working with the children still as much fun?
'Actually, people worked more formally in nursery in the past and it was more structured - you did things in groups, not for each individual child. It was more classroom-oriented,' says Ms Ranson. 'Now, many people have a free-flow day.
'We've tried to slim down record keeping, and we've removed computers so staff have more time with the children. We've gone for more instant observations and don't write them up, to keep with the idea of the new EYFS.'
But perceptions about the experience of working and playing with children have indeed been altered by the bugbear of keeping to regulations and inspections.
'If you're a confident practitioner, you can generate a lot of fun,' says Ms Raven. 'If you feel Ofsted is breathing down your neck, you feel less confident. Out-of-school clubs, for instance, feel their practice should be different from nurseries - more relaxed - but now they have to apply the EYFS.
'As long as practitioners can talk knowledgeably about what they're doing, it doesn't have to be written down. Most practitioners understand that children need a deep level of enjoyment to be able to learn.'
Ms Gostelow says, 'The new EYFS framework is definitely more prescriptive, but that is a problem for employers, not practitioners. It is our job to make sure that nobody is "ticking boxes" when they are with children and that meeting requirements becomes instinctive. Confidence in knowing what, why and how should mean that practitioners have a more rewarding experience and achieve greater job satisfaction.
She adds, 'Fun is fun. Children will usually find it, and good practitioners have always known how to get involved, share the experience and come up with ways to prolong and develop it.'
ALL IN A DAY
Other aspects of the nursery day have moved on, for good and perhaps ill. 'Some of the paranoia today about taking photos of children is just silly,' comments Ms Raven. 'Sharing photos of what the children are learning ... well, one picture really is worth a thousand words. As for security, we didn't even have to have the back door locked 20 years ago, though we always had to keep the children in, except for outdoor play.
'But 20 years ago, you'd stand around outside with a mug of coffee, watching while the children played, and that was it. Outdoor play has improved because of the level of understanding of the practitioners, thanks to the research that's been done in universities or in places like Denmark. When my staff have come back from training courses in that, they've transformed parts of the nursery.'
Awareness of nutrition and healthy eating is another conspicuous change. Ms Raven recalls, 'My mother ran a pre-school in the 1970s and in her setting they kept a jar of "magic sweeties" - if a child fell over and cried, they got a magic sweetie. Snack time was a glass of milk and a biscuit. Parents are being educated that children need healthy food, and they're transferring that from home to nursery. They ask more questions now about the menus, and our menus are more adventurous.'
Sue Ranson says. 'We've always cooked wholesome foods from scratch and avoided high fat and high sugar. But in the early years sector there are still no official rules on food, only guidance.'
She also notes that there is now pressure from the local authority to do things with the outdoor area. 'Being in Cornwall, we are always outdoors,' she says. 'Children need space to rush about. But now we have got so much "stuff", so much equipment, it sometimes gets in the way.'
MOVING FORWARD
The bottom line for most providers is not how good or bad the past was, but whether they can carry on business successfully.
Ms Ranson remembers, 'When we started we were the only nursery in north Cornwall. Then there was an explosion of childcare, with New Opportunities funding for start-ups and grants for childminders, and early years funding was quite sensible when it first started.
'Business is less sustainable now because of the low rate of Nursery Education Grant (NEG), which doesn't match fees, and because offering parents flexibility blocks up places. Many parents want term-time-only places.'
Ms Raven cites the rise of very large nurseries as an important factor in the market. 'It has become more cost-effective to have bigger settings. Some chains don't look at anything less than 60 places. They do often have better facilities, but they may lose something in the personal touch.'
She adds, 'Sustainability is something that has gone up and down over the years. If you want to pay staff a decent salary there's not a lot you can do. The NEG doesn't cover the hourly rate we need to charge.'
Still, long-running providers have just got on with it. Looking back, Ms Keaveney-Jessiman has seen four recessions since Eveline Day Nurseries was launched. 'We adjusted our business as required, and we have survived,' she says.
Ms Ranson thinks that is what sets the early years apart. She says, 'Most people running nurseries are childcare people who are in business, not business people who are in childcare.'
Every type of nursery has to be sustainable, adds Ms Raven. 'There are childcare businesses that are working for their shareholders, but on the other hand, there are little single owner-manager nurseries where profitability is equally an issue. Costs have gone up recently, but financial pressures have always been there, such as interest rates in the 1990s, which is not so much of an issue now.
'We've been through more than one recession - it comes and goes. You weather the bad times and hope to recover in the good times.'
DROWNING IN PAPER?
Paperwork is what shackles nursery business and practice today, according to Lynda Gostelow at the Childbase Partnership.
'The level of paperwork required means we have to employ extra staff to cover "non-contact" periods so that learning journey reports, for example, can be completed and levels of quality time between a key person and the children in their care can be maintained.
'Unlike some organisations, we don't expect staff to complete paperwork in their own time and we do provide support for the completion of all essential paperwork. Despite this, we have lost staff because they can't or simply don't want to cope with the level of paperwork required and resent the time spent away from the children.
'These very detailed reports are supposed to provide the basis for a smooth transition from nursery to mainstream schooling so that future educators can build on what has been achieved and ensure weaknesses are supported in the future. Frustratingly, the levels of paperwork circulating in the education sector today means that there are schools that simply don't use the information we supply.
'The health and safety of our children is an absolute priority, but the bureaucratic paper trail associated with this one area - in particular, formulating risk assessments and then continually reviewing them - is hard work. We have a dedicated health and safety officer and head office and field-based training teams to help our nursery teams. I don't know how smaller organisations meet the challenge. I often wonder how many imaginative ideas for enriching children's nursery experience have died a death at the prospect of completing the endless paperwork.'
