Opinion: Letters

CHILDMINDING NETWORK RULES

I signed up to become a member of our childminding network, which we have been trying to set up for about ten years. However, the membership criteria seem ludicrous.

Some local childminders hold early years foundation degrees and are moving on to do a BA and attain Early Years Professional Status. Yet one criterion is that everyone completes the six-month Level 3 EYFS Certificate, even though they are qualified to a higher level.

In addition, the foundation degree module on child protection, at Level 4, is apparently not recognised by the Safeguarding Children Board. So, everyone has to complete a Level 3 safeguarding course, even though all of the Level 3 content is covered in the foundation degree module.

This is a senseless waste of time and money, particularly in the current climate of Government and local authority cutbacks. The money would be far better spent providing training for practitioners who need to further their training, rather than on having practitioners repeat courses at a level to which they are already qualified.

Name and address supplied

- Letter of the Week wins £30 worth of books

TOO INTELLECTUAL?

Are there other settings out there who are fed up with the intellectualising of our practice? I give as an example schemas (last covered in Nursery World's series by Pen Green Centre, Corby (18 February, page 14). I bravely stand up to say: What a load of rubbish!

At its root it makes a lot of sense: find out what interests a child and use that information to help him engage with activities. But there comes a point when he has to be encouraged to widen his points of interest.

If you've identified a child as having a rotational schema, I do not believe it is good practice to be offering never-ending circle games, wheels, spinning tops, etc while ignoring woodwork, football and so on. Surely we should be using common sense and moderation in all things.

Name and address supplied

Pen Green replies:

What we have found, through many years of observing children and interacting with their parents/carers, is that schemas give us insights into children's interests and concerns.

We strongly believe and recognise that young children are powerful intellectuals in their own right. Their parents know them well and can recognise these repeated patterns (schemas) if we share the language with them.

Schemas enable us to offer a broader range of experiences to children than when we focus on only the 'content' of children's play (content meaning what they are playing with). For example, if, as Chris Athey points out, we notice a child's interest in 'clocks' (content), we might offer a range of 'timepieces'. However, when we realise that the child is also interested in what the clock does (the underlying 'form' or schema is 'rotation'), this information opens up endless possibilities for extending the learning, including woodwork (hand drills with handles that rotate, using a vice) and football (rotates as you kick it).

THINK ABOUT BEING SICK AND UNPAID

Yesterday I found out that the staff at my children's nursery are not automatically entitled to sick pay. As a result, staff who are unwell force themselves to come to work when they should be at home. This concerns me on two levels: first, the well-being of the staff, and second, my children's health and safety while in the care of sick or injured staff.

With the best will in the world, I do not believe this policy exhibits the duty of care required to care for my children. Sick staff may pass on their illness to the children. And what if they are injured and unable to lift a child in an emergency?

Surely there should be minimum standards of employment contracts for staff working with such young children to ensure that they and the staff are not placed at risk.

Fiona, parent of two children, aged three and one

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