One of the most contentious parts of the Government's consultation document on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the proposal to relax adult:child ratios.
The document has already raised the hackles of private and voluntary sector providers who believe that, while it may seem an attractive proposition commercially with a small saving on staff costs, it will compromise quality, be unfair to very young children and be unacceptable to parents.
Under the Government's proposals a ratio of 1:13 would be introduced for three- to five-year-olds for a limited period in each day - some time between 8am and 4pm - when a qualified teacher or other graduate level professional is present, such as one of the new early years professionals or someone with a suitable level 6 qualification. For the rest of the time the existing requirement of 1:8 would remain where practitioners meet just the basic qualification requirements.
Children's minister Beverley Hughes spelt out the Government's rationale for changing the ratios in a recent speech. She argued: 'This will help ensure that we improve the quality of provision - and retain parental confidence - but do so in a sustainable way. And it will allow settings in the private and voluntary sector to meet the same requirements as maintained nursery schools and classes - settings where we know children have positive outcomes.'
However, the Government has already peered down this particular route. In fact, its proposals fly in the face of some of the key findings of a study commissioned by the DfES nearly five years ago, undertaken by the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education.
Published in January 2002, Research on Ratios, Group Size, and Staff Qualifications and Training in Early Years and Childcare Settings, whose authors include Dr Tony Munton and Professor Peter Moss, found among providers that there was 'very little support for adult to child ratios of 1:13'.
Staff surveyed in the study insisted that such a ratio would mean less time to devote to children's learning and more time taken up 'for discipline and general control'. It would mean less scope for doing cooking and messy activities, such as arts and crafts, water and sand play. The research suggests that 'children may miss out on important one-to-one attention from adults'.
As for Beverley Hughes's claim that the latest plan to relax ratios would 'retain parental confidence', the 2002 study suggests that 'relaxed ratios may result in parental dissatisfaction with the provision'.
Equally, the minister's suggestion that it would help provision be more sustainable is not borne out by the experience of a Northumberland nursery that has tried to operate a ratio of 1:13 and found that it did not save on costs (see box).
Level playing field
Early years specialist Wendy Scott points to the 2002 research and rejects the DfES's contention that revising the ratios would create a level playing field between the private and voluntary sector on the one hand and the maintained sector on the other.
At the moment nursery classes' ratios are set at two adults for every 26 children and in nursery schools, two adults for 20 children or two to 26 where the head does not teach.
She says, 'What people tend to forget is that we are not comparing like with like. In the private sector we are dealing with far longer days. Often in the private and voluntary sector a member of staff may be called away to deal with something else and the numbers don't always match expected ratios.'
Ruth Booth, who runs Training Packages, a Cheltenham-based company offering professional development training for those working with under-fives, agrees that sessional care in nursery schools cannot be compared with the operations of a private day nursery where the same staff will be on duty all day. While the emphasis on qualified teacher status is welcome, Wendy Scott insists they must be early years teachers with a thorough grounding in child development, but that there is a chronic shortage of graduates of this type.
For Stewart Hindmarsh, who owns the Cedars nurseries in Sunderland, the move to a 1:13 ratio would be 'very inappropriate and a retrograde step'.
Raising the ratios would 'negate the improvement in the training and abilities of the individual practitioner. We should be maintaining ratios at 1:8 and upskilling staff in that area.
'It just beggars belief that they could be floating this idea. It is not saleable to parents. Three- and four-year-olds don't just require education, they require nurture. How can you nurture on a ratio of 1:13?'
He adds, 'We have qualified early years teachers in our Foundation Stage settings supported already by level 3 and above nursery nurses on a maximum ratio of 1:8. They do a fantastic job and I would not ask them to operate a 1:13 ratio even for part of the day as that would be a move towards containment as opposed to education.' Mr Hindmarsh suspects that the change in ratios is motivated by a desire to allow schools to 'reach down' to gather in younger children to boost their numbers as they face falling rolls.
Dilution of standards
Early years consultant Margaret Edgington warns of 'a real dilution of standards' and adds, 'The long-standing expectation that a nursery school would have one qualified teacher and one qualified nursery nurse for every 20 children, and a nursery class would have the same for every 26 children will be eroded if this document is not strongly challenged.
'These are very young children and the ratios for nursery schools and classes were set when they had a wider age range from three to five. Now they don't. Most of them are very young three-year-olds.'
Former director of the Foundation Stage Lesley Staggs, who is now an early years consultant, says the proposed ratios and qualifications 'do nothing to promote the vision of a consistent approach to care, learning and development from birth to the end of the Foundation Stage'.
Given that findings from the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education Project point to the close link between children's outcomes and the qualification levels of staff and 'the power of sustained shared thinking between adults and small groups of children', Lesley says it is 'untenable'
that some children should have more qualified adults working with them than others.
Manny Lewis, chair of Early Education, says her organisation's concerns extend to the failure to address the issue of ratios in reception classes, which come under the infant size regulation of one teacher to 30 children.
She argues that children in reception should be treated in the same way as children in nurseries and not be burdened with the ratios in place for older school children.
She says, 'We would like an improvement in ratios to 1:10, so in a group of 30 children there would be three trained adults, including one qualified early years teacher.'
Summing up the views of most practitioners and experts, and undoubtedly echoing the sentiments of most parents, Ms Lewis says, 'They talk about well-planned play based on the developmental needs of each child and the need to plan for each child, but you can only do that if you have the right number of practitioners alongside the children. There is a difference between controlling children and facilitating their learning.'
Case study
'We have tried it and it doesn't work'
Debbie Wylie, who owns the Little Angels day nursery in Cramlington, Northumberland, believes that ratios should be strengthened so maintained settings operate a 1:8 ratio, bringing them into line with the private and voluntary sector, rather than the other way round.
She has first-hand experience of operating on a ratio of 1:13 as her nursery is partly registered as a nursery school for the provision of nursery education sessions for three- and four-year-olds.
She says, 'In effect we don't have 1:13 because we have to have staff in to ensure a ratio of 1:8 from 7.45am each morning. It might be a nice idea in principle but in practice, where you have a 10-hour day, to have part of that at a ratio of 1:13 doesn't work.
'You can't have a portion of the day on one ratio and another portion on a different one, with staff dipping in and out. That may be all right in nursery schools where the children are a bit more independent, but for our children continuity of care is so important.
'Today I have got 25 children in and there are four staff down there. On the odd occasion that we have used the 1:13 ratio, our nursery teacher has felt that she couldn't give the children the individual attention they need.'
