In 1892, educational pioneer Emily Ward founded the Norland Institute as the first educational establishment to offer any kind of home-based childcare training. In doing so, she created a brand-new profession – the trained nursery nurse – and the training model upon which all future nursery nurse training would be based.
At the crux of Emily Ward’s childcare philosophy were the pioneering principles of a well-trained, well-educated workforce with professional love for the child at its heart (epitomised in the founding motto of ‘Love Never Faileth’).
The notion of formal childcare education and training was revolutionary. Norland’s cutting-edge training, which combined theory with practice and hands-on experience, would go on to inspire the nursery college movement and lay the foundations for the Nursery Nurse qualification or NNEB, the precursor for the modern-day CACHE qualifications and many other early years qualifications since.
Having trained under Froebel, Emily Ward was a firm believer in child-centred practice. She recognised a child’s first years as crucial and intrinsically understood that the quality of their care would drastically impact their resilience, success and happiness beyond their earliest years.
Another founding motto of the Norland Institute was ‘Strength in Adversity’ and is just as relevant to the modern world as it was back then.
In the decades since, extensive research has demonstrated Emily’s vision for well-informed home-based care practices in a child’s early years.
As educated professionals, at the forefront of cultivating future generations, it is essential that greater recognition is afforded to home-based professional early years practitioners. With the industry in crisis, nannies offer untapped potential to help solve the childcare crisis.
A simple first step would be the recognition of highly trained and skilled graduate nannies as a profession in the Standard Occupational Classification codes (SOC codes).
Nannies are currently classified as low skilled in SOC code 6. While the 2020 SOC code review moved most early education childcare practitioners from group 6 up to group 3 for skilled professionals, nannies were left in SOC group 6.
This was largely because the nannying profession is legally unregulated in the UK, meaning that there are no standard qualification levels or articulated skillset and duties for nannies.
No one who works with young children, whatever the context, can deny that the role requires high levels of skill, insight and knowledge to create the optimal environment for young children’s development and learning.
It is disturbing to discover that the following job roles are deemed to comprise a higher level of skill than the complexity of supporting young children, such as a car paint sprayer, a florist, a singer, a steward, a carpet fitter or a shoe repairer.
There are already highly skilled and trained graduate nannies, not least Norland Nannies, who should be recognised as such through a new classification in the SOC codes alongside other early years practitioners. This would be an important first step in raising the status and value of home-based childcare.
The next fundamental step would be to regulate the nanny industry.
Currently, nannies can voluntarily register to be part of the Ofsted Childcare register. Ofsted inspect around 10 per cent of all nannies registered on this platform each year, or more if there has been a complaint against an individual.
However, as this is a voluntary form of regulation, many will slip through the net if not placed under Government-mandated regulation processes. Currently, anyone can call themselves a nanny and work unsupervised in the family home caring for babies and young children.
The regulation of nannies would put the UK in a pioneering role globally. Only one other country in the world has regulated the nanny industry, Romania.
Regulation would align nannies with other regulated early years practitioners by ensuring that nannies have the necessary qualifications, criminal record checks (DBS), and experience to provide high-quality and flexible home-based childcare for families.
Over 130 years since Norland’s foundation, we continue Emily Ward’s legacy by being at the forefront of home-based early childhood education and care.
We recently established two important research initiatives to advance knowledge and understanding of this under-researched but vital area. The Norland Educare Research Centre is dedicated to generating cutting edge research, training, and consultancy to support the very best in early years provision and related services, nationally and internationally.
We have also published the inaugural issue of the Norland Educare Research Journal – the world’s first research journal dedicated to home-based childcare. The journal is fully open access and online only, offering free-of-charge access both to readers and authors, at norland.ac.uk/journal
In the UK, we have a long and distinguished history of high-quality training and education for home-based early childhood education and care. It is high time that home-based childcare is recognised for the highly skilled professional role it is and regulated as such, alongside its early years setting counterparts.