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Childcare Bill

This has been a very interesting and important debate. At an earlier stage in our proceedings the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said that she feared we were seeking to nationalise childhood. Having nationalised it, she thinks we want to abolish it outright. I can assure her that we do not intend to nationalise it or to abolish it. In Amendment No. 65ZA the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, says that she wishes all relevant provision to be under the direction of a qualified teacher. She then wants to remove the words ““teacher”” and ““taught”” from all subsequent references in the Bill. I assume that we are going to have a category of teachers who are banned from teaching. Or are we going to re-name teachers? Will the teachers become—I am not sure what—facilitators or, taking the amendment of my noble friend Lady Massey—if she will forgive me—promoters of assimilation? All I can say on this one is that I look forward very much to the consultation with professionals, in which I have the honour to play a big part when we start consulting on the re-naming of their profession. I should say that, because I want to bring the debate down to earth a little, if we think it is reasonable enough for people to perform a role which involves facilitating, organising activities and all those multifarious activities the role of a teacher involves, and it is satisfactory for them to be called teachers then, for goodness sake, surely it is satisfactory for the activity they undertake to be described as teaching and what they do to be a process of ensuring that children are ““taught””. I am getting slightly getting ahead of myself. Let me deal with Amendment No. 65ZA first. We agree that practitioners should be well trained and that settings should have to meet requirements in terms of qualifications. Research evidence tells us that the qualifications and training of childcare workers have a positive impact on children’s outcomes. Specifically, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education Project, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, tells us that children make more progress in settings where staff have higher qualifications, and that settings where trained teachers work with the children have the greatest impact on quality. I cannot stress too strongly that there is no plot, whatever the National Union of Teachers may say, by us to have qualified teachers playing a lesser role in early years settings than is the case today. Indeed, if Members of the Committee would pay attention to my letter to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, of 2 May, which sets out the ratios and qualifications requirements we wish to see henceforth for children aged over three, they will see that there is a significant incentive for registered early years providers to recruit qualified teachers—that is those with a qualified teacher status. All such providers would then be able to take advantage of the ratios which currently pertain for three and four year-olds only in maintained nursery schools and nursery classes in maintained schools. Our reason for doing that is precisely because of the argument put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that when you have highly trained individuals leading those settings, it is appropriate that the ratios that currently apply in the case of maintained nursery schools and nursery classes could apply more widely. We have no intention whatever to change those ratios in respect of maintained nursery schools and nursery classes; namely, that there must be one member of staff for every 13 children. At least one member of staff must be a school teacher, as defined by Section 122 of the Education Act 2002. I hope that goes some way to meeting her concerns on this. In setting the ratio and qualification requirements, we have to strike a careful balance. As well as ensuring that provision is of a high quality, we need to ensure that we do not set that bar so high that existing settings, with which parents may be very happy, are not able to continue operating. Our proposals will allow other early years settings the flexibility to meet the same ratio requirements of fewer adults to children as maintained nursery schools and classes for a limited period of the day if a graduate-level professional is present. For this ““maintained nursery school”” ratio to apply, the graduate-level professional would need to hold qualified teacher status, early years professional status or another suitable level 6 qualification, and we are giving significant incentives for the training of more level 6 qualified individuals with the transformation fund that I have referred to in almost every speech I have made from this Box in our proceedings. The Children and Workforce Development Council has worked with a range of partners to develop a set of draft standards that describe the skills, knowledge and competencies that we believe are necessary for those who wish to gain early years’ professional status. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to dumbing down in regard to these competencies and standards, but that is complete news to me. She cited some who have made claims to that effect. The best response that I can give on that point is to say that I shall study with care what she said in Hansard and shall reply to her, but these are not criticisms that we recognise. The draft standards are currently being consulted on and have been developed in line with revised standards for qualified teacher status but with a greater emphasis on the youngest children and child development, precisely to meet the concerns of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. They therefore cover the nought to five age range more comprehensively than the QTS standards, which cover the teaching of children from age three upwards. I shall give examples of the skills and knowledge that it will be important for early years professionals to have. They will need to focus on wider child development, as young children learn from everything they do, experience and observe. They will need to be able to gain knowledge not just of the child but also of the child’s wider environment and those they are with outside the setting so that they can develop and nurture a dynamic relationship; and they will need strong communication skills so that they can work with families and other professionals to ensure a better experience for each child. We will work with the Children and Workforce Development Council to determine what other level 6 qualifications may be appropriate for staff in this role. Many vocations, including social work and play work, have a focus on working with children, and some level 6 qualifications associated with these vocations focus on working with young children and child development. The experience of such practitioners can enhance the overall experience of settings, individual children and families by helping to ensure a holistic approach. The amendment would also require the Secretary of State to publish, and early years settings to have regard to, guidance on staffing matters. We agree that this is important and, as I have said, we propose to set qualification and ratio requirements as part of the early years foundation stage. In addition to setting requirements, the EYFS will provide guidance, for example, on exceeding the minimum ratio requirements when that is appropriate to meet the needs of individual children, on putting in place contingency arrangements to ensure that ratio requirements are met in the case of staff absence, and on the types of continuing professional development it is appropriate to offer staff so that they have the up-to-date skills and knowledge that they need to do their jobs properly. I accept that the amendment is intended as a probing amendment on our intentions in respect of qualified teachers in early years settings, but I should add that it would remove the requirement that the Secretary of State specify welfare requirements as part of the early years foundation stage. It is through these welfare requirements that we propose to set the qualification and ratio requirements that I have just described, and if we did not have those it would mean that the EYFS would consist only of learning and development requirements. I do not think that that was in the mind of the noble Baroness who moved the amendment but I simply point it out in terms of drafting. We now move on to the issue raised in a number of amendments which reflect concerns over the formalisation of the early years and seek to remove the word ““taught””. I hope that I can provide reassurance that with the early years foundation stage we will have a framework that is fully capable of recognising and appropriately supporting the wide range of needs and abilities of all children in the early years. I emphasise strongly that the early years foundation stage will be based on children learning through play with enjoyment and challenge. Research tells us that the most effective settings use play to provide the basis of instructive learning. The document that I circulated earlier—the Direction of TravelPaper on the early years foundation stage—makes that very clear. Paragraphs 12 and 13 of the document state that,"““EYFS will build on detailed research findings. The current Foundation Stage builds on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) longitudinal research project and Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years . . . both of which provide a significant body of research into effective early learning and development practice.""EPPE concludes that in the most effective centres, ‘play’ environments were used to provide the basis of instructive learning. The most effective approach, and one which will be at the core of EYFS, is both ‘teaching’ and providing freely chosen yet potentially instructive play activities””." This makes explicit the objectives flagged up by Members of the Committee in terms of what will actually constitute effective early years provision and makes it clear that those are entirely shared by the Government. However, learning through play does not remove the need for appropriate teaching through adults planning, joining in and extending play. The process of learning needs to be a joint enterprise between the child and the early years practitioner. The word ““taught”” is recognised by practitioners in the early years sector and is not about formalised, classroom-style teaching. It reflects the language already used in the foundation stage and, indeed, is used in the Education Act 2002 in almost precisely the way we use it here in respect of under-fives. It sets out in detail for the foundation stage what we mean by teaching for those aged from three to five, and states:"““Teaching has many aspects, including planning and creating a learning environment, organising time and material resources, interacting, questioning, responding to questions, working with and observing children, assessing and recording children’s progress, and sharing knowledge gained with other practitioners and parents””." In other words, it embraces all of the activities to which noble Lords drew attention in their contributions. The Birth to Three Matters framework similarly reflects a wide definition and includes many examples of informal teaching. For example, under the section on ““A skilful communicator””, the framework suggests that practitioners should,"““help children learn the names of other children and important people in their lives, for example through songs and rhymes””." Most people, and certainly most early years practitioners, would recognise this as teaching, although it is both age-appropriate and informal. I can assure Members of the Committee that we aim to build on the existing frameworks. We have no plans whatever to change this effective approach. I turn finally to Amendment No. 69, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It seeks to ensure that the assessment of a child’s progress is undertaken by observation. The noble Baroness elaborated the point in her second contribution. We agree that the most appropriate means of assessing young children is by observation. I can reassure noble Lords that this principle will be very firmly set out in the early years foundation stage document, as it was in the EYFS Direction of Travel document. The early years foundation stage will require those who plan and deliver early years provision to assess children through ongoing observation through the normal course of a child’s learning and play. There will be no testing during this important stage of children’s learning and development. However, the term ““assessment”” also incorporates the observations and contributions made by parents and other early years settings to inform a profile of the whole child. To say in the Bill that assessment has to be undertaken by observation would narrow the interpretation and not reflect the valuable contribution made by parents and other settings to a child’s overall assessments. I hope that I have provided reassurances for all Members of the Committee who have spoken in this debate. When we use the word ““taught””, we actually encompass all those things that they wish to see take place in early years settings.