Maria Miller, shadow minister for the family, outlined plans in the Childcare Futures report launched by the Daycare Trust last week (see Analysis, p11). She said, 'The EYFS cannot be allowed to prevent high-quality settings with a different curriculum to the one prescribed by the Government from operating. Parents need to continue to have the freedom to choose the style of good quality and effective care they want for their children.'
A Conservative spokesperson clarified that the party regards the EYFS as 'particularly over-burdened with directives and regulations.' He said, 'We are not against high quality early years provision, but we are critical of how prescriptive it is. There are so many regulations that do not allow for creativity.
'We are not pledging to scrap the EYFS but rather look at it in terms of simplifying and slimming it down, as we would in other areas of the school curriculum.
He said that, rather than making the exemption procedure less complicated, the Tories hope that once it is not as prescriptive, fewer settings would want to opt out.
Pat Broadhead, Professor of Playful Learning at Leeds Metropolitan University, questioned what is meant by 'simplifying and slimming down'. She said, 'This seems to be a phrase politicians use to mean taking control and changing things yet again for practitioners.
'The notion that some settings are "opting out" suggests that changes are being determined by minority influences rather than by a fundamental understanding of what might be good for children in terms of their curricular experiences in an early years setting. The problem with curriculum development in this country over the last 20 years is that there has been no development - just tinkering for power gains. It is not the prescriptiveness of the EYFS that needs addressing but the gaps in knowledge about children's learning that it encompasses.'
Bernadette Duffy, head of Thomas Coram Children's Centre, London, said deregulation 'has been tried before and does not necessarily lead to greater creativity and outcomes. I would caution against removing regulations, for example on ratios and qualifications, because we know these make a positive difference.'
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats revealed proposals for parental leave and universal childcare for under-fives this week. 'The Best Start for Children, the Best Deal for Families' outlines that the LibDems would invest up to £3 billion to create a universal childcare system including:
- Nineteen months paid leave to be shared between parents;
- Up to 20 hours of free childcare per week from 18 months to five years, available to all parents;
- Direct funding to registered providers to ensure stable funding.