There's nothing like a conference for creating a buzz about new ideas.
Practitioners can get up to speed on the latest policies and legislation, find out about new books and materials and enter into debates about early years issues. Conferences also offer a great networking opportunity, where practitioners can find out how others in a similar position are dealing with the challenges of work.
With this in mind, students in our third-year policy unit on the Early Childhood Studies degree at the University of East London were asked to attend outside conferences. In a two- month period there were many to choose from, spanning local seminars or workshops and all-singing, all-dancing affairs with well-known speakers.
The conference topics that students opted for included the impact of TV on young children, workforce recruitment and retention, degree level training, the quality of early years education and healthy schools.
Students were asked to search for an interesting conference, handle the paperwork, and get themselves to it (with the help of a small grant if necessary). They had to report back as if they were reporting to their colleagues at work.
This process was a revelation for some. 'I had never heard of professional development in the nurseries I have worked in,' says Neslihan Mazhar. 'I don't know any nursery nurses on the floor who are encouraged to attend conferences.'
While all students felt it was a good idea to hit the conference circuit, some found it daunting - especially if they didn't know anyone. When Tanya Devine went to a prestigious event in central London she felt apprehensive on arrival. 'The titles on the delegates' badges sounded very grand and I felt intimidated,' she says. 'But they made me welcome and the conference sprang to life after the speakers had finished and the chairpersons asked for questions from the audience. All in all, it was a successful experience.'
So what makes for a good conference? According to students, it needs to be well run, with adequate background information and effective follow-up. As Ana Morley puts it, 'The basic factors that make any meeting a success are targeting the right audience and providing them with good seating, good acoustics, good lighting, good time management and good use of resources.'
Successful conferences require lively and well-prepared speakers who have something new to say. The messenger seems to be as important as the message; if the speaker does not have good presentation skills, audiences get restless.
Afia Begum criticised one speaker for following his notes too closely. 'It would have been better if he talked at a slower pace. This would have given the audience time to take in all the statistics and detailed information.'
Another observation was that an audience doesn't like to be passive. Ann Grisley reports that the conference she attended lacked interaction.
'Participation was limited in the morning session, with only 15 minutes of time allowed for questions at the end of the session,' she says. 'For the remainder of the morning we were expected to sit and listen to the presentations. Questions were not permitted during or between the presentations, which was unfortunate because quite often questions were forgotten by the time you had a chance to ask them.'
Ms Grisley thought the afternoon table discussions were the most rewarding.
'This was because we were being asked for our opinions, and some good suggestions were put forward,' she says. 'Participating in the group discussions made a welcome break from sitting and listening to the speakers' presentations.'
At a couple of conferences, the students felt patronised by the speakers, and they also felt some of the presentations were too middle-class. Alison Elam remarks, 'I did feel that, on occasion, there was a tendency to stereotype people. For example, we were made to think that all people from low socio-economic backgrounds watched daytime television.'
A number of students identified contradictions in the information and advice that was given. Gladys Conteh noted that the local conference on business she attended had omitted any discussion of premises. She says, 'Locating available business premises is the fundamental problem. None of the information provided is of any use unless there is also information on this subject. But the organiser said there wasn't much they could do about premises, because there was a shortage of premises in the borough.'
Some students thought that for all the rhetoric on the integration of care and education, the gap between the two seemed as pronounced as ever. Joy Herzberg, who attended a local conference on child protection, says, 'Every Child Matters states that the local authority should work closely with public, private and voluntary organisations to improve outcomes for children. However, practitioners from the maintained school nurseries were not invited to the seminar. Separating the private and voluntary sector from the maintained sector emphasises the two different systems of childcare and education in English early years provision.'
Eleanor Okunnu, who attended a national education conference reports, 'The conference focused primarily on education and not care which rather seemed to endorse the separation of the two in the British system, even though there is now a conscious effort to integrate them. There were no nursery nurses or childminders at the conference.'
Undoubtedly conferences can be an excellent source of information and can provoke new ideas and arguments about early childhood. But conference organisers beware - there is also a critical audience out there. The people who go to conferences also have minds of their own, and need to be convinced that what they hear makes good sound sense.