Last week I attended a nursery dinner with various operators from the south-east of England, where we started to discuss the question 'What makes a nursery special?'
I was pleasantly surprised when, uniformly, we all agreed that getting the right manager was the key to success. But we each had different reasons for coming to this choice. These included having teambuilding skills, having the right 'front-of-house' manner, managing staff, controlling bad debt - the list seemed endless. Eventually we agreed that the most important attribute good managers had was their willingness to take a personal pride in their nursery.
There is still a nagging doubt in my mind as to how the future requirement to have at least one early years graduate in each setting will be organised in practice. Will that person need to be the 'manager' or the person in control? Could it be they will take on the role of Room Senior in Pre-School and concentrate purely on the educational element of nursery provision?
One thing is clear: graduate status in early years education is not necessarily going to guarantee all the skills mentioned above. However, in terms of teambuilding, such a person will probably be the most academically qualified employee in the nursery.
Expectations as to salary will undoubtedly, and fairly, be much higher for graduates, and if the private sector cannot meet these expectations, the maintained sector - without the restraints of balancing the books - will be more than willing to use public funds to meet the demand.
Over the years I have seen similar changes and, in each case, those who had many years experience working with children were lost to the sector simply because they were unable, for whatever reason, to return to the classroom. Many of those lost were very good managers.
Given this potential hiccup on the nursery horizon, we have set up a team to examine closely how we believe graduate entry can be accommodated within nursery life, without it causing resentment, or damage to very delicate relationships built up by successful managers.
- Alan Bentley is chairman of the Childcare Corporation.
