In a speech last week to the Cardiff Nursery Nurse Support Group, Jane Davidson, education and lifelong learning minister, said, 'We will be working with our partners in both the maintained and non-maintained sectors as well as early years partnerships, to expand early years opportunities to provide good-quality half-time places for every three-year-old whose parents want this.
'This partnership will ensure that suitably qualified staff, not least NNEBs, who care as well as educate will guide and nurture the children. The employment of appropriate numbers of suitably-qualified staff who deliver and maintain the highest standards is essential in giving our youngest children the best possible start in life.
'Quality will be assured by inspection by Estyn.'
The minister said the Early Years Advisory Panel had been given the task to develop proposals for a statutory foundation stage, with a curriculum extending from three to seven years. A sub-group is currently identifying training needs, setting targets and 'informing the develop-ment of an early years training strategy which is in line with future regulation and national standards'. She said they would also be looking at the current adult:child ratios in schools.
Ms Davidson said, 'Current guidance on staffing levels makes it clear that it is for local education authorities and schools to determine what staffing levels may be appropriate in primary schools that admit four-year-old children to reception classes. However, in all these cases, the quality of provision should not be put at risk.'
Children in Wales welcomed the announcement. Its chief executive, Catriona Williams, said, 'We are delighted that Wales has been able to benefit from the collaborative work between voluntary and statutory agencies and the Assembly. We are particularly pleased with the focus on access to training.'
However, a spokeswoman for the Wales Pre-School Playgroups Association said that while it endorsed 'the ethos of diversity of choice in the different types of providers', the Association felt that the creation of new maintained provision should not be at the expense of 'perfectly good providers in the non-maintained sector'.
She said there were 'serious resource implications, because there is not enough money in the non-maintained sector'.
Ms Davidson said discussions were taking place with local education authorities on their plans for integrated centres. These would range from settings offering early years education and wraparound daycare facilities, to purpose-built centres which would not only provide these basic services but also have a range of supporting services from pre-natal parenting to adult learning.
A Welsh Assembly spokesman said, 'The minister wants to develop "learning through play" similar to European models where the majority of children don't start their formal learning until the age of seven. We are looking at how Wales can do the same, so that at the age of three or four children are interacting with each other rather than concentrating on mathematics and learning to read and write at an early age.'