Over the past five years the children's workforce in England has undergone significant change in order to establish a graduate-led profession to improve the quality of provision in all early years settings and raise the profile and status of those working with young children and their families.
A new professional standard for early childhood provision, Early Years Professional Status (EYPS), was launched in 2006 by the Children's Workforce Development Council, along with the ambition that all full daycare settings would be led by graduates by 2015.
Now, evidence of how graduate-level training is affecting the early years workforce is emerging from a three-year research project exploring the impact of obtaining EYPS.
BACKGROUND
In July 2009 we were commissioned by CWDC to undertake the Longitudinal study of the role and impact of Early Years Professional Status. The research is a three-year investigation of the role and impact of Early Years Professionals on their settings and on practitioners' career development and aspirations through two national surveys of EYPs and case studies based in 30 early years settings across England.
The survey set out to identify the background, experience and career trajectories of EYPs and their views on their ability to carry out their role. It also provides an overview of professional development activities, an assessment of the impact of EYPS on professional identity and the difficulties in achieving change in settings.
Almost 30 per cent of EYPs completed the first national survey in January and February 2010, with a sample broadly representative of the total population of practitioners with EYPS.
EYPS ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS
The role of EYPs is to lead practice across a range of settings that will deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage, support and mentor other practitioners, and model skills and behaviour that safeguard and support children.
At the time of writing, over 6,000 practitioners have achieved EYP status and more than 4,190 are currently in training across five pathways. EYPS recognises an individual's expertise as a practitioner and professional leader and is intended to lay the foundation for subsequent professional and career development. As one childminder with EYPS comments, 'One of the reasons I wanted to do the EYPS was because I wanted people to see that childminding was a profession and I wasn't doing it just as a job. It's allowed me to get my foot in the door and if I want to take it any further, I should be able to.'
While the survey highlights many shared characteristics between EYPs, such as being female, White British and established in their career, it also shows important variations.
- - A significant proportion of EYPs started working in early years relatively late in their careers. All are qualified to degree level; one fifth also have a postgraduate qualification.
- - In terms of current roles, the largest group of EYPs are owners, managers or deputy managers (40 per cent), followed by those employed by local authorities (12 per cent), room leaders and early years workers (both 7 per cent).
- - EYPs are involved in a wide range of leadership activities, from the leadership of practice within rooms to leading on learning and pedagogy across settings in a local authority.
- - EYPs work across a range of settings. Almost two-thirds are in the private, voluntary and independent sector (PVI), 18 per cent work in Sure Start Children's Centres, 12 per cent in local authorities, 5 per cent in maintained nurseries, and 3 per cent are childminders.
IMPACT ON SKILLS, STATUS, SELF-ESTEEM AND CONFIDENCE
The survey asked practitioners to rate the impact of gaining EYPS across a number of skills, dispositions and understandings drawn from the EYPS standards. These range from developing their own knowledge and skills and those of colleagues through to working with children and parents and their use of observations to assess children's cognitive and social development.
The overall responses are extremely positive across all six areas of the standards. The highest level of agreement (92 per cent) is in the area of their own knowledge and skills development, with lower levels of impact reported in the areas of observing children's learning (74 per cent) and social development (73 per cent).
One EYP in a voluntary setting has summed up the impact on her practice, 'We are more confident in supporting other members of staff. I have developed my own interpersonal skills. I recognise that people work in different ways and am more aware of drawing on different people's strengths to benefit the setting.'
Patterns across the six areas were relatively consistent. As might be expected, practitioners with less experience of working with young children tend to be more positive about the impact of gaining EYPS than their more experienced colleagues. This is particularly the case when discussing the use of observation to assess and understand young children's learning and social development.
Interestingly, however, in some areas, late-stage practitioners (31+ years) are more positive about the impact of EYPS than practitioners in mid-career. Furthermore, there are some indications that EYPs in PVI settings are generally more positive than other groups, particularly those working in local authorities, but this also reflects the differing levels of experience between these two groups.
As Figure 1 indicates, just over three-quarters of practitioners with EYPS (76 per cent) agree, at least in part, that EYPS has improved their sense of professional status and increased their confidence as a practitioner (80 per cent). As a result, almost half of all respondents (49 per cent) believe that colleagues now accept their ideas more readily: 'Colleagues see me more now as a leader rather than a manager,' said one EYP in a private setting. However, an overwhelming number (86 per cent of EYPs) feel that people outside their settings have little understanding of EYPS.
But it is important to emphasise at this point that EYPs occupy a range of positions in settings' leadership and management structures. Many practitioners were already experienced leaders before gaining EYPS; others remain emerging leaders. Such variations may explain the fact that only around a quarter of practitioners feel they are more able to influence change at work or have more opportunities to show leadership since gaining EYPS. There is also some indication that gaining EYPS has impacted differently on practitioners depending on the settings in which they work. The most striking example of this is childminders, for whom the impact of gaining EYPS is very strong, possibly reflecting a previous lack of formal recognition.
FUTURE CAREER PLANS
There are clear patterns in EYPs' responses to questions about their career plans for the next five years (see Figure 2).
A steady increase is noticeable in the percentage of practitioners in the later career stages (mainly owners, managers and local authority staff) who indicate they intend to stay in their settings and develop their current role, rather than move to a new setting or change role.
More mobility is apparent in earlier career stages: moving into training or development is the most popular plan, particularly for established (8-15 years) and mid-career (16-23 years) practitioners. Moving into a leadership and management role is the next most popular aim among novices (0-3 years) to mid-career (16-23 years) practitioners.
EYPs identify a number of potential barriers to developing their careers in the sector. The most frequently mentioned professional barriers are a lack of obvious career path (65 per cent), low pay (56 per cent) and the limited number of EYP roles available (52 per cent). The main personal barriers are concerns over having to take on additional caring responsibilities (54 per cent) and work-life balance (44 per cent).
IMPACT ON SETTINGS
The survey also explored the impact of EYPS on different stages of the change process, from the identification of effective changes through to their implementation and to the use of evaluation techniques and collection of evidence.
Responses indicate that EYPS has had a substantive impact upon practitioners' ability to effect change, notably in identifying areas for change and communicating them to colleagues (see Figure 3).
Practitioners feel least confident about the effect of the EYPS programme on their use of evaluation techniques. Perhaps unsurprisingly again, early career stage practitioners consistently rate the impact of the EYPS programme on their ability to lead and influence change higher than their more experienced counterparts.
Trends are less consistent across the different types of settings, but EYPs in PVI settings and childminders tend to rate EYPS as having the greatest impact, while LA advisers rate its impact slightly lower, particularly with regards to evaluation and the collection of evidence.
Key barriers to making changes and improving the quality of provision in EYPs' settings are difficulty in engaging parents (42 per cent), staff not being receptive to new ideas (35 per cent) and lack of resources (33 per cent). However, there is far more consensus about what does not represent a barrier, with only 19 per cent seeing a lack of staff as an issue and 14 per cent citing the failure of other leaders to recognise the need for change.
SUMMARY OF IMPACT
Evidence from the longitudinal study indicates the contribution that graduate-level professional development is making to improving early years provision and suggests the development of EYPS has had a substantive impact on practitioners' ability to effect change.
Overall, while there is evidence that EYPS has had a positive effect on experienced staff, the impact has been strongest on early career professionals and those working in PVI settings.
For information about the project, go to www.wlv.ac.uk/cedare or contact T.Waller@wlv.ac.uk. The survey is also available at http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/research/projects/current
