Last week the Labour party outlined their plans for graduate-led nurseries to help fight inequality in early years education.
Within a couple of days, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, Miriam Cates, had roundly condemned the policy in a Telegraph article calling it ‘a sinister attack on the role of parents’.
It is hard for me to understand her position. I have worked in early years for well over 20 years and have witnessed at first hand through my community-based work and my work in higher education how transformational high quality early years provision can be for children and families.
Firstly, this is not a new move, there have been graduate pathways to working in early years since the early 2000s. The current government has a fully funded Early Years Initial Teacher Training programme that is taught at post-graduate level and is specifically aimed at those working with the 0-5 age group. This course faces difficulties with recruitment not because of lack of interest in this area or because graduates are not needed but because the entry requirements are the same as for primary teachers but without any guaranteed pay, conditions, or progression routes at the end.
We are currently facing the worst recruitment and retention crisis ever experienced in the early years sector due to the pay and conditions and lack of progression routes for those working in this vital area. If we demonstrate that we recognise and value the importance of those working in the sector through pay and progression routes we can start to reverse the process of nursery closures, which are particularly acute in areas of disadvantage.
The Nuffield Foundation published a report in 2015 that summarised research findings into early years education and care, and they concluded that the quality of nurseries was a crucial factor in improving outcomes for children. Too often children in areas of disadvantage experience lower quality care but graduate leadership is associated with a narrower gap in measures of quality between settings located in the most and least deprived areas. Why would we not want high quality care for all our children?
The need for many families to have two wages to meet their basic needs means that they do not have a choice about whether they access nursery provision. Rather than the state stepping in to ‘weaken the bond’ between parents and children, providing high quality education and care for all children whilst they are in nursery focuses on the outcomes for children rather than simply seeing nurseries as a way of supporting parents to be economically active.
As a university we took the unusual step in 2021 of opening a nursery in an area of our city with significant social and economic challenges. The feedback from parents on the impact the nursery provision (which is graduate led) has had on their children and themselves is very revealing. When interviewed they talked about the progress their children had made and their own social isolation and their need for support on child development, feeding, tantrums and toilet-training. The nursery also provided time and space for parents to make decisions about their own aspirations.
In the parent research, one participant said: ‘Because of Wendy coming here, I am looking to either going back in to work or applying for a university place.’
The nursery is having a truly transformative impact on children and families.
This nursery is based in a former SureStart centre, which was closed in the austerity cuts that saw the loss of so much community support that families relied on. The Family Hubs programme is a welcome investment in support for families, but it is a pale shadow of what was lost.
I agree with Miriam that parents are the first and most enduring educators of their children and that they do need support. Instead of railing against those who are working with families and communities to improve outcomes I would invite her to support those of us looking forward to a time where we value the education and care of all children and ensure that those living in disadvantage enjoy the same quality of provision as their more advantaged peers. A time when families receive the support they deserve from passionate, committed, well qualified and fairly recompensed professionals.