The Investors in Children (IiC) award for early years quality assurance (QA) schemes is being launched amid concerns about how the programme is to be promoted.
The DfES will include names of the first 24 schemes to gain IiC recognition on the Sure Start Unit's website, but there are worries over how providers who have completed accredited schemes will be able to advertise that information to parents.
National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) chief executive Rosemary Murphy says, 'Schemes will want to show they have IiC accreditation, but we don't know if they are to use their own scheme logo, an IiC logo or what. Will a setting have its own logo on its letterhead while the bottom of the page is littered with logos from the QA scheme, Sure Start Unit and IiC?'
There are more than 60 QA schemes. IiC, which assesses them against criteria agreed with the sector, provides a benchmark.
'In some areas, nurseries have done the NDNA scheme and are then doing the local one too because their early years partnership only includes details of its QA scheme holders on publicity leaflets,' says Ms Murphy. 'IiC accreditation should stop that.'
QA schemes vary in approach. One of the best known is the Sheffield Quality Kitemark, which has been sold to 17 other early years partnerships. It comprises eight modules covering all aspects of childcare practice. For example, the module 'Working together as a team' includes recruitment, retention of staff, induction, appraisal, training, managing change, monitoring and evaluating planning. The interaction module includes adult/child interaction, developing children's social and emotional skills and behaviour management.
'A quality assurance scheme is about being reflective,' says Catherine Blythe, early years quality manager at CfBT (formerly Centre for British Teachers). 'Practitioners embarking on a QA scheme should spend their time critically evaluating and improving practice, not just filing paper.'
She explains that while it is necessary to collate evidence of a setting's practice, the benefit of a QA scheme is the opportunity it gives providers to reflect on that practice and determine how it can be improved.
Everyone can benefit from an exercise in self-examination, says Janine Collishaw, proprietor of Stepping Stones, Cirencester and Steps Ahead, Trowbridge, who has just completed an MBA for which she conducted a research project on childcare QA schemes.
'People are complacent if they think, "We are doing it all right". Someone once said the most dangerous thing for a business was to stand still. QA is a catalyst. It encourages every person in a nursery to look at what they do.'
Case study
ENDNA - Quality Counts
Sunbeams nursery in Plymouth was the 100th setting to achieve the NDNA Quality Counts award. During the process, the ten staff redefined their roles and helped develop a keyworker system to operate during absences.
Proprietor Sue Kowalski says, 'It may sound arrogant but we always professed to parents and other professionals that we were good. We did this award because we wanted something that acknowledged that.'
Plymouth EYDCP paid 70 per cent of the nursery's costs as part of a drive to promote QA.
NDNA charges its members 580 for the Quality Counts manual, enrolment and assessment process. It charges 740 for non-members.
'When we started, we realised what were doing was a critical overview and it was going to be a team effort. We redefined our job descriptions. Staff took on the roles in which they had an interest, so someone became the equal opportunities person; someone else has taken on the foundation stage curriculum.
'We developed what we call operational files. Each person has a file for planning, monitoring and evaluating the children's work. The files are standardised. So, if a key person is absent, someone else can pick up the file, look up the planning and then start from there.
'Each keyperson now gets time off the floor, two or three hours, at least once a month, to do work around their area of interest. The staff room is now being made into a resource area.
'I think the hardest part was collating the information and putting the portfolio together. I worked on it every weekend for about five months. It all had to go to an independent inspector who did not know us. I had to explain the process we had been through.
'We are more reflective now. We all agree that it doesn't just stop because we have achieved the award. We will carry on looking at what we do.
'When the portfolios went away to be inspected I could hardly wait for them to come back to update them.'
Case study
CfBT - Quality Matters
Frustration with bland inspection reports drove Vanessa and Rob Kellow, co-proprietors of the Southampton-based Playaway Day Nurseries chain, to enrol for Quality Matters.
The chain paid 1,500 to take the award for the three settings it then operated and Southampton EYDCP later reimbursed it and is now funding the fourth setting on the scheme.
Ms Kellow says, 'I was getting terribly frustrated with the Ofsted inspection process as it then was. The reports just focused on minimum standards. It was opposite to the way we look at things: we look all the time to raise standards.
'We found the staff were feeling professional dissatisfaction. They knew they were so much better than the minimum, but there was nobody apart from the team leaders and us telling them how brilliantly they were doing.
'I felt it was also important to know our position in the market place. We knew parents were looking for advice on how to know what a good nursery is.
'I sold it to the staff saying, "How many times when we've had an inspection have you felt the quality of what you are doing has not been noticed?"
'It was about empowering them and giving a sense of ownership of their contribution to the way their nursery would evolve. It was about reviewing practices and reviewing policies. It was not about change for change's sake but about challenging what we do and asking, "What do we do? Does it work? If not, why not?"
'It took about a year to do because at each stage the staff examined how a policy worked in terms of the nursery, age group concerned and the setting.'
'It was a worthwhile thing to do. Parents do take notice of QA.
They make comparisons between nurseries.'
Case study Sheffield Quality Kitemark
Meg Wetz, proprietor of Acorns Montessori, Camblesforth, Yorkshire, and her eight staff achieved the Sheffield Quality Kitemark in 2001.
'We did it in six months. I thought people would get bored if we took longer so we set ourselves the target. We came in 20 minutes early each day, which meant everyone could sit round with their coffee and we went through the questions. We took turns to read out the question and start the answer. This way even the most junior staff members got involved - otherwise they could be quiet. Everybody chipped in and the discussions became interesting.
'I took notes and spent at least two hours typing them up which was an awful chore. I read them back next morning before we started so we could agree our answer.
'The questions were thought provoking. Sometimes there would be stunned silence or laughter as we said, "Oops, we don't do that". Other times we would all be smiling and thinking, "Yes, we do that". It reinforces your confidence that you are competent.
'It made us review things. We have a reputation for taking SEN children, but we looked at what we did and have since installed a loop system for people with hearing difficulties - for the children - but it can help parents and carers too.
'We also changed our management practice and introduced a management team of myself, the nursery supervisor and the head of the out-of-school club.
Everything runs more smoothly.
'Achieving QA gave us immense pride.'