Nursery classes have a long tradition of staffing ratios to include nursery nurses alongside teachers. However, the Government's use of Age Weighted Pupil Units to calculate nursery funding has meant cuts in budgets and the erosion of staffing ratios. This has led to a reduction in nursery teachers, as the received wisdom is that a nursery nurse qualification is sufficient to run a nursery class.
I see schools as having mixed teams of individuals with a variety of qualifications. This is not dissimilar to hospital theatre teams, where everyone has a specific role and the sum of the whole makes the system effective. The key will be high-quality training for everyone to play their part to perfection.
The principal professionals will be graduate teachers, who will lead pedagogy and will model the appropriate teaching strategies with their teams. If this part is diluted, the quality of the provision will falter and the key Government aim of raising attainment will fall at the first fence.
The falling birth rate and use of AWPUs would result in a significant shortfall in funding. Instead, the opportunity should be taken to maintain a robust teaching profession with the capacity to free up the time for professional development, planning, peer mentoring and working together.
This would encourage the growth of skills to disseminate the new and increasing knowledge about children's learning.
Alongside this we can have well-qualified support staff who carry out a variety of roles to support children and families in accessing the curriculum. Learning mentors could certainly play a valuable role in Key Stage 1, building upon the strong foundations laid by quality nursery nurses in the early years. Schools will need to take on radical changes in future such as extended schools and children's centres. Teachers need to be exceptional at their craft and to become better at sharing their many talents with others. Time, and money, is the crucial investment here. Quality cannot be eroded.