Staff-to-child ratios, and more importantly, staff qualifications and in-service training can predict the quality of pre-school childcare settings, a new study has found.
The research by Professor Edward Melhuish (pictured) and Julian Gardiner from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford has found that better-qualified staff maintain the quality of state-funded pre-schools, making up for the larger number of children per staff member in comparison to private and voluntary settings.
The findings also show that the quality of private early years settings can be predicted by staff qualifications, and for voluntary settings by an in-house training plan and a better staff-to-child ratio.
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