Nursery World - Nursery Chains: Recruitment

The GCSE maths and English requirement for Level 3 has been scrapped, but many settings are still struggling to hire and retain quality staff. Jo Parkes speaks to some chains to find out why

Job satisfaction is something that childcare workers have long enjoyed, but employees cannot live on dreams alone, and the GCSE requirement at Level 3 was stalling career progression in the field.

Since that rule was scrapped by the Government in this March’s Workforce Strategy, and trainees now have the hard-won option of qualifying in functional skills for maths and English, settings are hoping for a restored pipeline of quality staff.

Of course, a return to pre-GCSE staffing levels won’t be instantaneous, especially with low pay continuing to be a problem, and the lag has been well-documented.

‘It will probably take us at least another six months to recover from the recruitment block posed by the GCSE requirement,’ says Cheryl Hadland, managing director of Hadland Care Group, which owns medium-sized chain Tops Day Nurseries.

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