While academics debate the virtues of the new Standards and criteria applying to Early Years Educator and Early Years Teacher qualifications, nursery owners and managers are trying to gauge what these qualifications will mean for business.
According to the Government's More Affordable Childcare report, reforming early years qualifications is a 'critical' part of improving early education and childcare, and giving parents confidence about services.
But nursery employers are still left wondering how all the pieces will fit together. How will nurseries be supported to run with the new generic role titles? And how will the quality they are designed to promote be paid for?
At Bright Horizons Family Solutions, director of early years Nicola Amies emphasises that a good starting 
point would be to give employers clear information about what these qualifications actually are.
'We are still seeing advertisements for NNEB and many employers are confused about the CYPW and other Level 3 qualifications,' she says. 'In her review of qualifications, Cathy Nutbrown was clear that there needs to be a "badging" system to enable employers to identify qualifications and the skills they confer. Ideally, we need the National College for Teaching and Leadership to provide a one page update on the "badging" of qualifications.'
Ms Amies points out that criteria published by the National College should not be confused with the content of new qualifications. 'It is now down to the awarding bodies to develop the content for Early Years Educator and we will see them creating their own qualifications. For example, there could be a CACHE Early Years Educator and a BTEC equivalent. These qualifications will need to be submitted well before September 2014 so that they can be sold to training establishments, in time for them to recruit students,' she says.
'The window of opportunity for awarding organisations to engage with the sector in developing the qualifications is tight but not impossible. We have the perfect opportunity to see innovative and inspiring qualifications entering the market.'
Early years teacher vs Early Years Professional?
Early Years Teacher has attracted the most controversy and debate since the Standards were unveiled in July.
Employers appear to be divided on how it will boost business and whether they would prefer to employ an Early Years Teacher rather than an Early Years Professional (EYP).
At the UK's largest nursery group, Busy Bees, HR director Clare Phizacklea believes parents will understand and recognise the title of teacher more easily than EYP, and notes the Department for Education (DfE) has said it should not be shortened to an acronym.
'We have informed all our current EYPs, along with the managers, that they can now be referred to as Early Years Teachers,' she says.
She is clear on how the new role will fit in with Busy Bees' 214-strong chain and structure. 'The Standards outline responsibilities for curriculum, safeguarding, coaching, mentoring and development of staff,' says Ms Phizacklea. 'In some nurseries the owner or manager will want to undertake this role without employing an Early Years Teacher.
'There will also be nurseries that will look to delegate a portion of supernumerary time to an Early Years Teacher to undertake the responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of quality childcare.'
Busy Bees certainly intends to maximise its use of Early Years Teacher expertise. 'To fulfil the wider scope of their responsibilities, Early Years Teachers will need to be rostered into different rooms and it will be down to individual operators to determine how best to utilise their skill set within a nursery staffing structure,' she says. 'Busy Bees is currently undertaking a full evaluation.'
EYPs working at Bright Horizons will be involved in a discussion to decide whether they will be called Early Years Teachers in future. However, Ms Amies fears the name change will ultimately prove confusing.
'Parents will hear the word teacher and naturally latch on to it. It will be up to employers to decide how to explain the differences,' she says.
At York Nurseries in Burnley, co-nursery owner and EYP Heather Langridge says that on a personal level she would happily convert to Early Years Teacher - 'but I could not expect to be paid any more for it in the current climate,' she says.
She would like to think that the new title could confer greater status, but doubts it. 'No one has ever asked me what I do as an EYP, or what I had to do to achieve it, and I can't see this changing,' she says. 'Until the sector is properly funded in the same way as schools we will not be able to raise quality in the way the Government would like.'
Unanswered questions
For either of the new qualifications to succeed, the Government will need to invest in raising their profile. As Busy Bees' Ms Phizacklea says, 'The sector would benefit from investment in media advertising to achieve this.'
Meanwhile, the development manager at Lincolnshire Montessori, Nathan Archer, says the sector will need a range of delivery models to ensure adequate take-up.
'Financial support to undertake these qualifications and funds to support staff cover will also increase take-up,' he says. 'Sadly, I feel that ever increasing costs, reduction in local authority support and training, and a slow economic recovery will make it very difficult for wages to increase significantly. This is lamentable given the current low wages in the sector and the drive for higher qualifications. The only way this can be rectified is by more supply-side funding.'
As far as Ms Amies is concerned, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. 'We've not had any information about the entry requirements for Early Years Educators, for example,' she says, 'or about the number of study hours involved, or indeed how the quality of teaching will be raised, which was a prime concern for Cathy Nutbrown.'
Cost of quality
Qualifications cannot be looked at in isolation and employers are trying to gauge the implications of Early Years Teacher and Early Years Educator for salaries.
Busy Bees believes it is essential that skills levels must be rewarded with appropriate pay to attract the right candidates, but at the same time they need to be realistic.
'It is essential that these salaries do not make a nursery financially unviable, bearing in mind the many cost pressures that apply to private nurseries,' says Ms Phizacklea.
She adds, 'It is unlikely there will be a radical increase in pay or change of conditions to Early Years Teachers or Early Years Educators in the short term. However, by enabling a nursery to call their staff members Early Years Teachers it will certainly raise our parents, understanding and awareness of their role.
'Nurseries that employ Early Years Teachers may be able to allocate higher salaries than to other qualified staff in the long term if occupancy increases as a result of having staff with this status.'
But have changes to qualifications really been thought through in terms of pay and conditions? Ms Langridge thinks not. 'The sector is in major financial distress at the moment with rising costs and parents being unable to pay the current fees. If fees need to be raised to cover the increases in salaries demanded by better qualified staff, where will the money come from? Certainly not parents.'
She adds, 'This goes directly against the Government pledge to reduce the cost of childcare to parents and create "More Great Childcare".'
CACHE UPDATE
CACHE is in the process of unit development for its new Early Years Educator qualification and is working collaboratively with a number of subject experts, including assessment specialists.
Chief executive officer Rob Wye says, 'We are ensuring our new Early Years Educator qualification takes into account our market research, stakeholder feedback, and meets the criteria as set by the National College.
'While developing the qualification, we are also mindful of the diverse age ranges and job roles of all of our prospective learners and we are aiming to have appropriate solutions for all of them. We have taken advice from our funding experts and other bodies to ensure the qualification falls into as many brackets as possible to make it an attractive offer to all.
'CACHE will have the draft content available to our centres by the end of September 2013; this will include the qualification content, structure and assessment methodology. Further guidance for tutors and learners will be released as we move into 2014.'
EARLY YEARS TEACHER - VIEWPOINT
Nathan Archer says, 'There has been much condem-nation that "play" does not feature in the Early Years Teacher standards, and we are not convinced that the DfE response that "the freedom and flexibility to deploy a range of methods and to decide how best to structure children's activities throughout the day" is satisfactory.
'To reject Nutbrown's recommendation of QTS for EYTs does these professionals and children a disservice.'
EARLY YEARS EDUCATOR - VIEWPOINT
Heather Langridge says, 'It's fairly good as far as it goes, but there is not enough attention to the theorists and theories that enable staff to understand why a child is doing something.
'In addition, there is nothing detailing working on outdoor play (which is seen as very important in Oftsed's eyes) or the differences between girls' and boys' play and learning, all of which are essential for good practice.'