When I wrote an article reflecting on my first year of practice for Nursery World in July 1990, we were at the beginning of an era of unprecedented change in early childhood care and education. Before 1996 the early years sector had experienced little Government intervention, but the publication of the first national guidelines that year opened the floodgates, with statutory guidance, assessments, and revised frameworks pouring forth ever since.
Policies relating to improving quantity and quality of provision, child protection, multi-agency working, workforce reform, raising outcomes and promoting inclusion, have all dominated my professional thinking and experience since then. As many providers have found, keeping knowledge and understanding up to date and supporting others to do the same has been a constant challenge.
Accountability and inspection
My first nursery, in Solihull, was registered in the same year that the Children Act 1989 introduced the requirement for social services departments to take responsibility for the registration, regulation and inspection of childcare. This was the start of an enduring relationship of mutual professional trust, which still exists today.
Having a local inspector and advisory team was invaluable in those early years. Being visited year on year by the same inspectors and advisers encouraged ongoing action plans and improvements. The inspection, which took place at 'arms length', could take account of the local context and any recommended improvements could be followed up in systematic way. Similarly, in Warwickshire, I opened my first two private day nurseries located on primary school sites in 1994, which were operated and inspected in line with locally determined standards.
While inspectors in the nineties took some account of supervision, interactions and the suitability of toys and equipment, they tended to focus on whether sandpits were covered, the type of soap, the number of socket covers, and the organisation of mealtimes, rather than the quality of teaching and learning.
Our reports were little more than a tick-list, with some limited commentary highlighting what children were seen to be doing rather than any consideration of the progress they were making. When Ofsted's powers were widened in 2000 to include registration and inspection of all early years and childcare provision, I trained and worked as a lead inspector, on the giving and receiving end of a national, if somewhat unwieldy, system. In those early days, Ofsted inspectors ranged from former social services officers to secondary science teachers and headteachers, some with questionable early years knowledge.
In more recent years, most inspectors seem to be well-trained, fair, professional and experienced, armed with clear and transparent evaluation schedules and criteria. But in contrast to the eighties, a different inspector appears in each of my settings for approximately six hours, every few years. They gather evidence, make a judgement - albeit rigorous - write a report and then disappear. Just as we become used to one framework, a revised or new set of evaluation criteria is produced.
These constantly moving goalposts, combined with pressure to demonstrate 'progress', have resulted in the feeling that we are complying with, rather than committing to, national changes. Even though we always do everything by the book, and consider ourselves to be 'good' with outstanding features most of the time, we are constantly waiting for the unknown inspector to swoop in unannounced to at best call us 'inadequate', and at worst close us down. Our philosophy of 'being' rather than 'getting' outstanding has stood the test of time, especially as getting outstanding is nearly impossible when the criteria changes between inspections.
Bureaucracy is increasing. In the nineties the focus was on fire, accident, registers, medical and other routine records. Now there is a need for written policies and procedures for almost every aspect of practice. Behaviour, planning, the key person, assessment checks and trackers, equal opportunities, special educational needs, a missing child, parent partnership, child protection and health and safety not to mention training plans, peer observations, recruitment and vetting records are all subject to this. Sometimes it feels as if we are drowning in policies and staff records.
Curriculum and standards
The introduction in 1997 of the Nursery Voucher scheme, which entitled parents of four-year-olds to vouchers to pay for three terms of nursery provision and was the forerunner to the universal free entitlement, saw the publication of the Desirable Learning Outcomes for Children on Entering Compulsory Education. This was little more than a seemingly random list of targets for most children to achieve by the term after their fifth birthday.
After this followed a stream of statutory requirements and non-statutory guidance documents.
Leadership
There has been a gradual acknowledgement of the importance of leadership, and a highly trained workforce, in determining quality and ensuring children reach their potential in an appropriate environment. Yet there has never been a coherent career progression route or pay structure.
I have witnessed the introduction and demise of numerous qualifications, NVQs, Foundation and Early Childhood Degrees, with ever-diminishing funding available to access these courses or good quality continuing professional development. On a positive note, the emphasis on leadership and self-evaluation for ongoing improvement has had a positive impact on my settings. We have an established leadership structure, and mainly due to sheer determination, my senior staff have become effective leaders of practice.
I have been involved with increasing numbers of child protection conferences, and seen children living in poverty or in homes with drug or alcohol abuse, domestic violence and neglect. I have met and provided for children with severe and complex learning needs.
There have been times of disillusionment - unsubstantiated complaints from parents, staff shortages, financial issues, accidents, illnesses and deaths of parents, staff and children. But the principles, philosophy and standards we set in our first year have survived. Our mottoes, 'What they bring home in their heads is more important than what they bring home in their hands' and 'Childhood is a journey not a race', remain intact.
I have seen children grow up to become doctors, pilots and teachers. Some, including my own son, are now working for us. I know we have made a small difference to the future. Most of all, seeing the children's faces when I call in at any of the nurseries and hear them say 'Caroline's here!' makes it all worthwhile.
TIMELINE OF KEY DOCUMENTS SINCE 1996
- - Desirable Learning Outcomes for Children on Entering Compulsory Education (1996)
- - Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (2001)
- - SEN Code of Practice (2001)
- - Birth to Three Matters (2003)
- - Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (2008)
- - The Early Years Foundation Stage (2012)
- - Early Years Outcomes (2013)
- - The revised Early Years Foundation Stage, and the new SEND Code of Practice (2014).
These came in the form of CDs, boxes, files, booklets, ring binders, posters, principles to practice cards - and now seem to creep online almost unnoticed. There have been various themes and principles, accompanied by frequent changes of terminology, from 'mathematics' to 'problem solving, reasoning and numeracy', then to 'mathematical development'; from a 'strong child' to a 'unique child', and so on.
The past ten years has been a period of increasing downward pressure to meet centrally prescribed, pre-determined outcomes, and push children from the Progress Check at Age Two to achieve and be 'school ready'. This is rather than pushing schools to be 'child ready'.
At the same time, there is an ever-decreasing level of local support and advice. That early climate of collaboration and support has become a climate of compliance and enforcement with little or no infrastructure to support those leading and implementing practice on the frontline.
Dr Caroline Jones now owns five nurseries on primary school sites and is also a course director for the Sector-Endorsed Foundation Degree in Early Years at Warwick University
