Challenge and Change for the Early Years Workforce

Working with children from birth to 8

Christine Ritchie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138016668
• eBook ISBN: 9781317703419
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The early years sector is going through a period of unprecedented change. This has resulted in significant challenges for the early years workforce and it is crucial that settings, teams, leaders and individual practitioners respond to these if they wish to continue to provide the best care and education for young children.

This timely text identifies and addresses the key challenges for those working with young children from managing personal and professional change, adapting to new legislation and considering new ways of thinking about children's early learning. It considers the core knowledge and understanding of good practice that enables practitioners to respond appropriately and with confidence to issues they face on daily basis.

Covering a wide range of diverse topics including professional identity, neuroscience, outdoor education, literacy, special educational needs, the family and the 'risk' factor, the book encourages the reader to reflect upon their own views and attitudes towards change practice and includes:

• Chapter overviews and summary boxes
• Case studies to highlight good practice
• Questions to promote debate
• Annotated further reading

Aimed specifically at those that are studying and working with children from birth to 8, this book will be a core text for Foundation Degrees in early years, early childhood studies and those working towards Early Years Teacher Status.

Section 1

Change = Challenge

The three anonymous quotes given here are motivational to direct your thinking as you begin to read this section of the text. Firstly, ‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you!’

As you read each of the chapters, think about who you are, the values that you hold and how you can be challenged in your thinking and acting.

Secondly, ‘The question isn’t can you? It’s will you?’ Accepting the challenge for change sometimes means that you need to make a decision to change.

Thirdly, ‘Challenges are what makes life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes it meaningful.’ It is on your journey as a person working with young children and their families that will continue to learn and make meaning.

In this section there are three chapters:

Chapter 1 is written by Judy Gracey and explores ‘The challenges of change’.

Chapter 2 is authored by Shona Henderson and considers the feelings related to change in ‘Understanding feelings: how to accept the challenge’.

Chapter 3 is written by Lin Shaw and highlights the value and importance of ‘Maintaining a vision during times of change’.

1 The challenges of change

Judy Gracey

Overview

This chapter examines the ways in which early years educators are challenged by changes to their roles. It discusses the ways in which the educator, facing changing circumstances, is affected by personal values and attitudes. The context, ethos and culture of the workplace and the impact of various attitudes to change will also be considered. The need to develop personal attributes and skills that assist in meeting these challenges is explored, and the chapter will show how the experience of change can increase personal confidence as well as adding to knowledge and understanding of good practice. Lastly, the chapter discusses the idea that it is the attitude of the practitioner when experiencing change that determines personal well-being and success.

Introduction

The work of the early years practitioner has undergone many changes. From being popularly perceived as a job for those that ‘love to work with children’, it is now considered to be a profession that plays a crucial role in the care and development of young children and their well-being. However, it is a multi-faceted role. There has been a government-led drive for a more highly qualified workforce, tighter regulations and clear guidelines for practice and accountability to outside agencies for that practice. Nevertheless, caring remains an attribute that is central to the role of the early years practitioner. Moyles (2001, p. 84) states that ‘feelings and emotions such as passion are acceptable and indeed desirable’, but that it is a mindful passion. It requires deep knowledge and understanding of child development. Moyles links that need for passion with a reasoning mind, able to analyse, reflect, understand, evaluate, learn and engage, and be an inspiration for professionalism.

The individual facing change

Change, fuelled by research, debate and governance has been a constant feature in early years settings. Urban (2008, p. 141) describes distinct layers to our knowledge of early childhood and practice. There is the body of knowledge produced by scholarly research and debate that has to be transferred and then applied in practice. He describes it as a ‘ powerful top-down stream of knowledge presented as relevant for practice, and a similar downstream of expectations and what needs to be done at practice levels of the hierarchy’. It presents enormous challenges to the early years educator, increasing expectations and requiring them to improve practice based on studying this ‘top-down stream’ of knowledge, and acquiring deeper understanding of early years development. However, the educator has the satisfaction of seeing how the children respond to the positive changes that enhance their opportunities for development.

In addition, this research has led to improved knowledge and understanding of child development, which has driven the government to increase standards in early years education through inspection and changes to guidelines for practice. Settings are regularly inspected by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) to ensure the children’s well-being, welfare and personal development needs are met. The leadership and management of settings are examined, often resulting in recommendations for more effective practice. This close scrutiny and subsequent reflection and change have often led to the development of clearer management structures and more defined roles and responsibilities for practitioners. The role of the early years educator is increasingly recognised as crucial to raising standards for ensuring the holistic development of the child. This has driven the need for more professional knowledge and understanding of child development through academic study, and increased awareness of an early years career-structure based on qualifications as well as experience.

Childcare qualifications have traditionally been something of a patchwork of levels of knowledge, understanding and skills. In their research concerning effective provision of pre-school education, Sylva et al. (2003) found that the quality of early provision was linked to the quality of staff working in the settings. ‘Children made more progress in pre-school centres where staff had higher qualifications, particularly if the manager was highly qualified’ (2003, p. 3). Consequently, a drive to ensure a more knowledgeable and skilled workforce based on improved understanding of the development needs of young children has been prioritised. For example, England introduced a ten-year strategy to support and improve the lives of families that included increasing the education and skills of those working with the early years (DfES 2005).

In a DfE survey conducted to ascertain the qualifications of group-based early years staff in 2011, researchers found that among the group-based childcare providers and early years settings staff, the difference was relatively small when it came to the proportion of staff holding at least a level 3 qualification (A-level/NVQ level 3). This was 79 per cent among paid childcare staff and 82 per cent among paid early years staff. However, the difference was more pronounced at level 6. Only 10 per cent of paid group-based childcare staff, compared with 42 per cent among paid early years staff, had an Honours degree. Childminders typically had lower levels of qualification than staff in the group-based providers, with 59 per cent of childminders holding at least a level 3 qualification and only 4 per cent holding a relevant level 6 qualification (DfE 2011, p. 90).

The situation is still far from perfect. In the Nutbrown Review, an independent review of early years sector qualifications, it was found that the present qualification system is confusing. Nutbrown (2012) points out that the ‘present system is not systematically equipping practitioners with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to give babies and young children high quality experiences’ (2012, p. 5). The UK’s economic downturn has eroded the financial support for practitioners’ further education and training, and in addition there are few financial incentives for undertaking further learning. However, in her foreword to the report More Great Childcare (DfE, 2013), Liz Truss MP promised that the government would:

• build a stronger, more capable workforce, with more rigorous training and qualifications, led by a growing group of Early Years Teachers;

• drive up quality, with rigorous Ofsted inspection and incentives for providers to improve the skills and knowledge of their staff.

The early years practitioner who increases their knowledge and understanding through study is more able to meet the drive for quality that is forcing changes to management and practice. The report promised that the Government ‘will improve early years qualifications so that parents and providers can have greater confidence in the calibre of people who are teaching our youngest children’ (DfE, 2013, p. 6).

The report cites research undertaken by Sylva et al. (2004, 2008) that found:

• The quality of Early Years provision is related to better intellectual/cognitive and social/behavioural development in children at entry to and throughout primary school.

• Children made more progress in pre-school centres where trained teachers were present.

• High quality pre-school is especially beneficial for the most disadvantaged children.

For the early years practitioner, this emphasis on gaining further qualifications comes with higher expectations, more challenges to practice, more guidelines for improving the quality of practice, extensive regulation, accountability and rigorous inspections. These have resulted in exciting but challenging times. In their report ‘Early Years and Child Care’ (2011, p. 21), Ofsted inspectors also concluded that ‘outcomes for children were good or outstanding where practitioners were well-qualified or trained.’ Therefore, the practitioner who wishes to improve practice needs to seek out and take advantage of opportunities for continuing professional development.

Moyles (2001, p. 89) wrote that ‘if we want professionals, then professional understanding itself needs to be nurtured, to be allowed time to develop and opportunity to be applied.’ She goes on to say that desire and self-belief are important, ‘educational improvement depends upon practitioners feeling they WANT to make a difference: upon them feeling empowered and professional.’

The role of the early years professional has become more complex and is constantly evolving. It is not just a job for those who love working with children, though that attribute remains a central characteristic of those who work with children, but there is now wide recognition of the need for a deeper theoretical understanding of child development in order to fulfil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• About the contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Section 1: Change = Challenge
• Section 2: Challenges for Learning and Learners in the Middle of Change
• Section 3: Barriers to Inclusive Practice in Times of Change
• Conclusion
• Index