There has been a change over the past few years in the demand for babies attending daycare. Due to extended maternity leave and more flexible working conditions, many babies are not attending nurseries full-time at such an early age. This has got to be a good thing.
While we recognise that group care for children under three is not ideal, we, at Riverside, believe that we have a duty to provide the best possible quality for children while they are attending our nursery. We do this through a holistic approach to health, care and education which is based on individual needs. We create a homely environment and ensure staff have the skills and expertise to interact appropriately with children, families and other professionals.
This has been developed through the Early Excellence programme and our desire to improve the quality of provision for our youngest children. We have disseminated our good practice to other settings and hope that with the roll-out of the Children's Centre agenda, high standards continue to be a priority.
If the Government is serious about ensuring the best outcomes for children and families, it needs to listen to what early years practitioners are saying and invest money, resources and time to improve standards, rather than continuing to water down quality as it extends provision.
* Anne Gunning, education co-ordinator, Riverside Nursery, North Shields (Nursery World Nursery of the Year 2005)
