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When the Early Years Workforce Strategy launched last March, its aim was to reverse the massive recruitment crisis facing the sector. The headline-grabbing element of the strategy was without a doubt the removal of the GCSE requirement for Level 3 staff. But did the strategy have any more to offer, or was it merely a vehicle for bringing in that policy change?
While the strategy contained some new commitments, such as the development of a qualification for SENCOs, much of it listed projects that were already under way when the document was published, such as the development of an online training portal, or funding which had already been made available. Other elements turned out to not be as advertised – the training portal, for example, was described as hosting online training modules, but in reality just links to existing training on other websites.
A commitment to provide guidance to support workforce development and SEND specialism turned out to be one small case study in a general document about funding – it is not likely that anyone would have recognised it as the promised document without being told.
Some commitments have been met, others have been met to a certain extent but not completely; some projects have suffered delays, while others seem to have fallen off the radar completely. A Department for Education spokesperson said, ‘The Early Years Workforce Strategy identifies the challenges facing the early years workforce. The Government is working with the sector to review these challenges.’
We have analysed the current situation and awarded green for target met, amber for not substantially met, and red for not at all met.
Level 2 qualifications
The pledge: The Government, along with the wider sector, will develop criteria for Level 2 childcare qualifications for delivery by September 2019.
Progress: A consultation on the criteria for Level 2 childcare qualifications ran between December 2017 and the end of February 2018. The DfE is currently analysing the responses to the consultation and considering feedback obtained from a series of Learn Explore Debate events and other employer group meetings.
Behind the scenes: Nursery Worldunderstands that the department hopes to have the consultation response published over the summer so that assessing organisations can start work on developing the qualifications for delivery from September 2019.
Level 3 qualifications
The pledge: The Government will broaden the current English and maths requirement for Level 3 Early Years Educators (EYEs), including for apprenticeships, to Level 2 qualifications, including functional skills.
Progress: The removal of the controversial GCSE requirement took effect from 3 April 2017.
Specialist graduates
The pledge: The Government will consult on amending regulations to allow those with Early Years Teacher Status and Early Years Professional Status to lead nursery and Reception classes in maintained schools.
Progress: The DfE has repeatedly not responded directly to this question, despite pressure from the sector, including 20 early years lecturers writing to MPs about this very issue. The DfE will only say it is ‘considering the feasibility of various approaches to supporting graduates in the early years workforce’.
The pledge: The Government will review the existing Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT) routes in 2017.
Progress: Without a public report or announcement, the School Direct EYITT route has been closed following an ‘internal policy review… as the pilot did not attract sufficient interest from potential applicants’.
The pledge: The Government will conduct a feasibility study by March 2018 into developing a programme that specifically seeks to grow the graduate workforce in disadvantaged areas, to narrow the quality gap between settings in disadvantaged and more affluent areas.
Progress: Deadline missed. Mother-of-two Temi Olusola recently delivered a letter to the DfE, supported by Save the Children and signed by more than 2,000 people, asking the Government not to abandon the pledge. The letter said ‘we have seen no progress’ in the year since the Government published its strategy and added, ‘In fact, things seem to be going backwards.’
The pledge: The Government will consider how wider work on strengthening Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) could offer positive opportunities for raising the status and parity of early years teachers.
Progress: A consultation closed in March this year but contained no mention of early years teachers.
Careers advice
The pledge: The Government will encourage more volunteers from the sector to work with schools and colleges to promote careers in the early years. It will work with the Education and Employers Charity to promote opportunities in the early years at sector events, and will make sure that the information and advice provided through the National Careers Service reflect a wider breadth of roles across the sector.
Progress: This is a difficult pledge to measure, using language such as ‘encourage’, ‘work with’ and ‘make sure’. The DfE says it has worked with the Department for Work and Pensions to review and update the National Careers Service online job profiles and to upskill Jobcentre Plus work coaches to develop their knowledge of the early years sector and promote childcare as a career, either employed or self-employed.
In February, speakers from DfE joined with the Education and Employers Charity and Tinies Childcare at an initiative to promote working in the early years sector in schools. This was a Childcare Career Speed Networking Event for year 8 and 9 students to meet childcare professionals. After the event, 71 per cent of young people said they would now consider a career in the childcare sector. Tinies’ Inspiring a Future in Childcare was an existing initiative which the DfE backed when it launched in April 2017.
The pledge: The Government will work with the National Apprenticeship Service to raise awareness of the early years apprenticeships.
Progress: Again, the wording is vague, making progress difficult to measure. The DfE says it is working with the new Institute for Apprenticeships and the early years trailblazer group to support the development of new apprenticeship standards and to include them in career pathways and advice.
The early years Level 3 standard has still not come to fruition, despite receiving initial approval in February.
Quality of training
The pledge: The Government will conduct a training needs analysis for early years tutors and trial an exchange programme for FE tutors. It will work with early years tutors to design and implement support from September 2019.
Progress:These actions are being carried out by the Education and Training Foundation, which engaged research company The Research Base to carry out the two-phase needs analysis. The foundation also established three Professional Exchanges.
The foundation will use its findings and those of The Research Base to develop a CPD package for tutors in the post-16 sector – the ‘support’ mentioned in the pledge.
Behind the scenes: The training needs analysis and short report on Professional Exchange for the early years sector is currently with the DfE, waiting for approval. The DfE reportedly told the Education and Training Foundation that ministerial changes have made it necessary for the department to take time to consider the findings and recommendations of the report, form their own views and decide on their priorities before moving forward.
The foundation has not received any funding for the financial year 2018/19 to carry any work forward.
Diversity of the workforce
The pledge: The Government will set up a task and finish group of early years sector stakeholders to consider gender diversity in the sector in more depth. The group will report to the department by the end of 2017.
Progress: The group, which is chaired by Paintpots’ David Wright, has been set up but has not yet reported back to the DfE – although it says this will happen shortly.
Developing career pathways and the Skills Plan
The pledge: As part of the implementation of the Skills Plan, the Government will establish a panel of professionals, including employers from within the early years sector, to advise on the development of the childcare and early education occupational route.
Progress:A 14-member panel, focusing on the development of T-Levels, has early years representation in the form of Penny Tassoni, president of PACEY, and Gill Springer, senior learning and development manager at the London Early Years Foundation. An eight-member panel which oversees apprenticeship standards was convened in November 2017, but has only one PVI early years representative. The DfE says it has developed a career pathways document with stakeholders, which will be published in due course.
Behind the scenes: The career pathways document has been developed by employers and awarding bodies including CACHE and City and Guilds, and will be published on the DfE’s early years qualifications page at a date to be confirmed.
Continuous professional development
The pledge: The Government will develop, through a voluntary and community sector grant, an online portal that sets out career paths, brings effective online CPD together in one place and provides online training modules.
Progress:EYupskill (www.eyupskill.org.uk) launched in September last year, although it does not provide online training modules as stated, just links. It was developed by the Pre-school Learning Alliance for the DfE, with funding from the DfE Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) grant round for 2017-18.
The pledge: The Government will provide training through voluntary and community sector grants on SEND, speech and language development and effective business management.
Progress: nasen was funded to launch a set of the free online resources around SEND training, which went online from July 2017. The DfE says this pledge also refers to the funding of EYupskill (see above), which is a directory listing existing training rather than providing training directly. It has not provided information on any other training that has been funded through VCS grants.
Supporting children with SEND
The pledge: The Government will work with organisations specialising in SEND to develop a qualification for early years staff who want to specialise in SEND in 2018.
Progress: The criteria for the Level 3 Early Years SENCO role were published in May. The working group that wrote the criteria envisages the qualification being available for students from September, but timing, structure and delivery depend on awarding bodies that will now take up the mantle of designing a qualification around the criteria. It is not clear if Government funding will be made available.
The pledge: The Government will develop guidance for local authorities and early years providers on how an inclusion fund and a targeted disability access fund can be used to support workforce development and SEND specialism by September 2017.
Progress:The DfE says this guidance was published in July 2017 as part of the Early Years Entitlements: Operational Guidance document. However, the document has only one short case study about SEND training.
Sector-led quality improvement
The pledge: The Government will expand relationships between schools and early years providers via the teaching school network and allocate up to £3m funding in 2017/18 and 2018/19 and up to £1.5m in 2019/20 to meet local needs.
Progress: The Government says this funding can now be accessed as part of the larger Strategic School Improvement Fund, but only by schools. Initially this fund offered no opportunities for funding work with early years providers, but the third round included opportunities for funding such work after a nursery school complained.
The pledge: The Government will support the development of ‘buy back’ models for quality improvement services in some local authority areas, whereby early years settings purchase support.
Progress: The Government says it has reviewed this model, and as a result confirmed a new £20m fund for professional development activity for practitioners in pre-Reception settings to support early language and numeracy development, with a focus on disadvantaged areas.
This fund is mentioned in Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential, the Government’s social mobility plan, published in December last year, but it is unclear how it relates to a ‘buy back’ model, which involves local authorities making quality improvement services such as training courses available for settings to pay to access if they want to (and have the funds).
Viewpoint: Michael Freeston, director of quality improvement, Pre-school Learning Alliance
At the time it launched, I wrote that to deliver the strategy, the DfE must offer operational detail identifying success criteria, targets and milestones to meet its worthy aspirations. While no implementation roadmap was produced, credit must be given with regards to many of the developments that have been carried forward.
The revised Level 2 qualification is due to be launched in September 2019. Similarly the SENCO qualification will be available from September 2018 as promised. Underpinning both these developments is the imminent publication of an occupational map outlining to employers and practitioners the rewarding career pathways the sector offers.
The DfE worked closely with sector experts to develop these products. Similarly, in the extension of the Teaching Schools Network and the Fatherhood Institute’s network to support male workers, close DfE co-operation with sector bodies has seen considerable progress.
Less progress has been made on the more strategic commitments. Consultations on whether Early Years Teacher graduates can lead nursery and Reception classes in maintained schools, if Qualified Teacher Status should be granted to them, and how to attract more early years graduates into disadvantaged areas, have not materialised.
Similarly, few would argue that recruitment and retention challenges have eased. This may reflect a lack of policy focus: we are two Ministers of State on from Caroline Dinenage, who published the document. Also, many of the challenges considered in the strategy are not within the gift of the DfE to deliver. Low-pay and low-status issues can only be addressed at Treasury and wider society levels.
