Childcare Matters - Comment

The Early Years Foundation Stage and the Open EYE campaign, two years on

2009-11-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

By Margaret Edgington, Richard House and Lynne Oldfield

It is now almost two years since we first announced the launch of the Open EYE Campaign for open early years learning in The Times and the TES, and set out in detail our concerns about key aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework in England.

We wish to introduce some tempered realism to recent uncritical statements by prominent authorities in the field about the alleged successes of the EYFS since its inception in September last year.

We believe that such viewpoints do not at all represent accurately the full reality of EYFS on the ground one year after implementation.

Open EYE wishes to acknowledge the many positive aspects of the EYFS, e.g. the admirable principles and the necessary welfare requirements. We are certainly not calling for a wholesale dismantling of the EYFS, and we have never done so.

However, we continue to express serious concerns, now shared by many across the sector, as to the inappropriateness of the statutory learning and development goals, and the uses to which they are being put.

The statutory learning and development requirements
In December 2007, we pointed to the conflict between the Unique Child EYFS principles and the legislated requirement for the attainment of “early learning goals by the end of the academic year in which they reach five”.

We highlighted the danger of a young and under-trained workforce focusing on “delivering” outcomes and gaining a distorted view of child development through uncritical use of the age-related “grids”.

More recently, we have strongly criticised the “audit culture” mentality which has entered the early years sphere via the Local Authority Outcomes Duty.

Many of the much-criticised “teaching to test”, assessment-driven characteristics of the primary school are now invading our nursery settings.

Ed Balls, Secretary for Children, Schools and Families, wants (and believes it to be appropriate that) our children “hit the ground running”, and the language of industry and the managerialist audit culture is rapidly colonising the art of education – with the alien discourse of “targets”, “outcomes”, “delivery”, “rolling out” etc. increasingly dominating the sector, and limiting the ways in which we can all think about our delicate, subtle work with young children.

Children’s author John Dougherty recently described his storytelling session in a local school, with teaching assistants sitting by the children with clipboards to assess the session against the EYFS profile targets.

Where was the role model for attentiveness and listening? What message are we sending out to our children? What happens to the practitioner’s quality of awareness when boxed in with prescribed assessment targets?

Has the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) commissioned any independent qualitative research into key questions like these, and their impact on the quality of practitioners” work with their children?

Sadly, we think not.

The “overwhelmingly positive” responses to the EYFS recently claimed by Sue Ellis, Director of the EYFS, therefore need to be viewed with considerable caution.

Statistics do not by any means reveal the reality of children’s experiences, or those of the teachers “delivering” the inescapable compulsory targets.

Any claimed “commitment” to the EYFS needs to viewed against the reality of the “compulsion” to “deliver” (and the consequences for your setting if you don’t), and the propensity of early years practitioners to comply with, and make the best of, whatever the Government might dictate to them.

How many young early years workers in their early to mid 20s will have the confidence and the articulacy to stand up against Government impositions that, in their heart of hearts, they know to be unnecessary and harmful – especially when training increasingly offers little if any space for critical thinking about the EYFS framework?

We continue to maintain that the learning and development requirements are unnecessary and over-prescriptive.

The centralisation of education
Open EYE member Wendy Ellyatt recently outlined the threat to educational creativity and innovation from “rigid Government-imposed frameworks”, producing a conformist culture in early years education.

She compellingly argues that this is particularly inappropriate due to the fluid, constantly changing nature of early childhood development.

The recent announcement that Steiner schools in England have obtained exemptions from certain learning and development requirements obscures the fact that they are still required by legislation to assess children against targets that bear little relation to their own values and curriculum; for not least, the EYFS profile remains compulsory even for these settings.

A registered childminder, Pat Adams, has been refused EYFS exemption despite full and enthusiastic support from parents; and the exemption process itself is so daunting that even on the most generous of readings, it cannot in any way be taken as a genuine demonstration of respect for healthy diversity or parental choice in matters of early years education.

With a heavily legislated state-imposed curriculum for pre-school children now in place, where can parents go if they sincerely believe that the literacy, numeracy and ICT goals of the EYFS are inappropriate?

Although the Steiner exemptions have given welcome publicity to the right to apply for exemption on the grounds of educational differences, there is little understanding that a second ground for exemption exists.

This is from the Human Rights Act of 1998, Chapter 42, Article 12, which gives “parents the right to choose their children’s education in conformity with their religious beliefs or philosophical convictions”.

When Annette Brooke, the Liberal Democrat MP and Shadow Minister for Children and Families, asked Dawn Primarolo to define this possibility, the Minister for Children replied, “The term ‘religious and philosophical convictions’ is a concept that is understood in case law, such as that on the European Convention of Human Rights.

“It refers to a cogent and serious belief-set or conviction worthy of respect in a democratic society” (our italics).

The exemption route remains very much of an obstacle course which is exceedingly difficult and onerous to negotiate.

Yet even if the exemption process were to be reformed and simplified, this would still not rescue children in maintained settings from the unsatisfactory aspects of the EYFS, particularly if the school entry age is lowered to four.

The profile remains statutory for everyone – even if successfully exempted from the learning and development goals, or unfunded. We still maintain that this legislation is a breach of the basic human right to educate children according to personal convictions, and that it represents an unjustifiable legal intrusion into the non-compulsory pre-school domain.

John Tranmer, the new chairman of the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS) recently spoke out in the Daily Mail against the “loss of freedom” for private, voluntary and independent providers to choose their own curriculum for the under-fives, made more puzzling by the fact that – as yet! – there are no mandatory curricula for older children in independent school settings.

He said, “It is fundamentally wrong that the government, or more accurately a collection of pseudo-educationalists and bureaucrats, dictate to us”, and he vowed to campaign to reverse the imposition of the EYFS, and to encourage members to apply for exemption.

Such centralisation of education, particularly in the early years, is deeply disturbing.

Open EYE believes that these aspects of what is in some respects an admirable framework are needlessly repressive, and represent undue interference from the government in the pre-compulsory school domain.

School starting age
We also now find ourselves confronted with the conflict between the recommendations of the Rose and the Alexander (Cambridge) reviews – the former being Government-sponsored, the latter being independent.

Sir Jim Rose recommends a new school starting age of four, whilst the Cambridge review recommends that the EYFS be extended to the sixth birthday.

The cavalier dismissal (not to mention the gross misreading) of Professor Robin Alexander’s Cambridge Primary Review by the Government (and by the Conservative opposition) strongly suggests that pre-decided politicised agendas are taking precedence over rational argument and evidence, and we find this deeply disquieting – not least because the delicate early years sphere is surely the very last place where ideologically driven agendas should prevail.

Open EYE has consistently advocated that a genuinely play-based EYFS should be extended to the sixth year.

Conclusion
Despite some 10,000 signatures on Open EYE’s 2008 Downing Street website petition, recommendations from the Government’s own early years advisers that certain of the learning and development goals are inadvisable, and many subsequent expressions of concern, no effective response has yet come from the government.

We believe there to be a grave danger of what is, in some key respects, inappropriate legislation being uncritically accepted by a compliant workforce, as the framework rapidly becomes unquestioningly institutionalised.

Although we certainly have no wish to see the EYFS dismantled in its entirety, we therefore agree with the recent call by Purnima Tanuku, Chief Executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, for a “reviewed and (much) improved” version.

To sum up, we have serious concerns that the inappropriate aspects of the EYFS legislation, and particularly the learning and development requirements, are becoming uncritically accepted by a compliant workforce, and embedded and “normalised” as a result.

Open EYE will continue to call on the Government to downgrade the legal status of the EYFS learning and development requirements to professional guidelines only.

We also advocate a truly independent, root-and-branch review of the EYFS, which will enable teachers to make the necessary distinction between those aspects of the EYFS which are progressive and helpful, and those which are not.

Above all, for the sake of all children in their earliest and most vulnerable years, we need to find the courage and the wisdom to get this right.

Open EYE can be contacted at www.savechildhood.org.

Margaret Edgington is an early years consultant and trainer.

Dr Richard House is Senior Lecturer in Therapeutic Education at Roehampton University, co-editor of Childhood, Well-being and a Therapeutic Ethos, and a trained Kindergarten teacher.

Lynne Oldfield is director of the London Steiner Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher Training, and author of the book Free to Learn.

The nanny state – can we make the Government (and politicians) listen?

2009-09-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

By James Tweed

Here is the text of the speech that I delivered at the Professional Nanny conference in Chiltern College, Caversham, Berkshire on Saturday 19 September 2009.

Let’s remind ourselves what nanny registration would mean …

Registration would mean:

• Having a protected title, that is, no longer can just anyone call themselves a nanny. No well-meaning person thinking it would be fun to look after a child can say they are a nanny.

• All nannies would have to meet a clearly identifiable set of accepted competencies with minimum standards of training

• Where there are concerns about a nanny these can be properly investigated and if found proved the nanny can be struck off the register and no longer work in that capacity. At the moment parents unhappy with a nanny have no way of flagging up their concerns to other parents who may employ the nanny, who could move to another part of the country and change her or his name.

• What if a nanny has a health or dependency problem? Under registration, for most professions I am aware of, re-registration requires a self-declaration that there is no health problem that impairs your ability to practice, for example, mental health problems, epilepsy or alcohol dependency.

Compulsory registration will have clear advantages for nannies. You have increased status and professional recognition within the industry and from your peers.

There will also be clear advantages for the parents who employ you. They will know you meet minimum professional standards and what those standards are, and that there is a regulating body to turn to if necessary.

And what will you call yourselves? Would you want to be called a registered nanny, like a registered childminder?

But where are we now?

At present, nannies in England can be on the Ofsted Childcare Register.

This is voluntary, not compulsory, and its annual cost at present is £103 (this includes a Criminal Records Bureau Enhanced Disclosure check).

But it offers few real benefits as nannies not on this register are still able to be employed by parents and care for children.

On the surface, such a register sounds adequate – not perfect, but OK.

But the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has pointed out that the voluntary register is not a kitemark, nor is it a safeguarding registration. Nannies on this register have not been properly checked out and it is simply a means of allowing parents to use childcare vouchers to pay part of their nannies’ salaries.

The Government seems to think this voluntary register is an adequate solution to the issue of nanny registration.

However, according to Ofsted, as of the end of June 2009, only 6.042 people in England were registered as home childcarers.

Ofsted admits the true figure is likely to be lower as “not all providers inform Ofsted that they have ceased provision”.

Ofsted told me a few months ago that, as of February 2009, only 268 home childcarers had been inspected since the scheme was set up in April 2007 – but was unable to tell me how many of these were nannies.

Perhaps there are so few nannies on the voluntary register because of the lack of clear advantages to them for doing so.

And many parents may be unaware that the register is voluntary and assume that all nannies are registered and regulated.

Why is the Government so reluctant to implement compulsory registration of nannies who want to be regulated, and instead is busy trying to register and regulate parents?

Over the years when the Government has been asked why it won’t regulate nannies as it does childminders, the answer traditionally has been along the lines of it’s up to parents who they invite into their homes and that that is none of the Government’s business.

Yet the Government doesn’t take this hands-off approach when a gas engineer comes to service your boiler.

And recently the Government appears to have had a rethink about regulating about what goes on behind the front door of your home.

In June the Government accepted the recommendation of a report by the former head of education in Kent that England should have a national registration scheme for home educators, that is, parents.

Yet when it comes to nannies, the Government believes a voluntary register is enough, somehow.

This seems strange, as this Government is obsessed with regulating and keeping tabs on people wanting to work with children and vulnerable adults through their having to obtain Enhanced Disclosures of any prior police record from the Criminal Records Bureau and following the children themselves from birth through its ContactPoint database

The past week has been dominated by news stories and discussion about how the Independent Safeguard Authority (is there a Dependent Safeguard Authority, by the way?) is to oversee criminal records and other checks on parents who, for example, regularly gave lifts to children on behalf of local football clubs or the cub scouts.

The Government wants to regulate parents who work in a voluntary capacity for a few hours a week with children and young people.

Yet the Government will not properly regulate the nannies who work with children for whole days on a daily basis.

We could soon have the ludicrous situation where the parents of children are being vetted for giving lifts to children as volunteers, while nannies who spend more time with the children than their parents do aren’t vetted at all.

The Government says Every Child Matters. This phrase is the cornerstone of its policies for children and young people.

But the reality is that Every Child Matters apart from those cared for by nannies.

So what is the answer?

Should nannies in England be registered and regulated by Ofsted just as childminders, who are also home-based, are?

This is feasible – and possible.

In 2001 Ofsted took over the registration and inspection of childminders in England. Up until then childminders had been registered with their local social services.

It seemed logical that if Ofsted could regulate childminders in this way that it could register nannies too.

Eight years on, Ofsted’s remit has expanded dramatically.

As of 1 April 2007, Ofsted regulates, and I quote, “childcare and children’s social care children’s homes, schools, colleges, initial teacher education, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, education and training in prisons and other secure establishments, (and) the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass)”.

But there is still no room in the inn for nannies.

Two weeks ago I asked the Department for Children, Schools and Families what the Government’s position is on the compulsory registration and inspection of nannies in England – and was told: “Ofsted are in charge of inspections of childcare settings, and there is no mandatory inspection of nannies. We would encourage them to join the Voluntary Ofsted Childcare Register.”

I asked Ofsted if it thought the registration and inspection of nannies in a manner similar to how it regulates childminders was feasible – and was told: “Nannies can already register on the voluntary part of the Childcare Register.”

When I raised the issue of nanny regulation with Conservative MP Maria Miller, the Shadow Minister for the Family, a few months ago she said, “I understand the arguments around the regulation of nannies in home settings.

“But what I am concerned that we don’t do is load yet more bureaucracy and red tape onto the sector, which feels rather overloaded at the moment.”

But Lib Dem MP Annette Brooke, Shadow Minister for Children, told me yesterday, “The Liberal Democrats fully support the call by nannies for a professional register which would regulate the sector. In formally recognising and regulating the profession Ofsted would allow both nannies and parents security, safety and support.

“Child safeguarding is high on the agenda at the moment and it is important to use this momentum to encourage the Government to recognise the need for proper accreditation and regulation for an industry that works so closely with children.”

Scotland has taken the approach of regulating nannies by having the Care Commission – Scotland’s equivalent of Ofsted – register all of the country’s nanny agencies.

The Care Commission told me earlier this week: “The Care Commission does not register, inspect or regulate nannies.

“However, it does regulate, inspect and register the agencies which provide nannies. Within the National Care Standards there are specific standards for Childcare Agencies.

“This means the agencies have to prove they are operating properly, are providing users with clear contracts and terms and conditions and carry out all full and proper checks on nannies (including disclosure checks, reference checks, employment history checks and qualifications).

“As part of the inspection and regulation process we will contact parents and ask them if they are satisfied with the service being provided. We will also investigate any complaints made against the service.

“The legal requirement for Childcare Agencies to be registered with the Care Commission came into full effect from April 2004. “

Here in England we’ve a voluntary childcare register with few nannies on it.

So how do we persuade the Government that nannies should be registered?

What is going to take to make nanny registration go up the political agenda?

Will it take a worst-case scenario of a nanny causing serious injury where previous families have tried to flag up concerns about the nanny, unknown to each other?

We don’t want a Baby P-type tragedy involving a nanny before the Government decides to act.

We want considered action for registration before such a tragedy causes an outcry and a knee-jerk reaction from our political leaders.

But finally, let us not lose sight of why we are also here today.

We are here to celebrate childcare excellence and the high standards and professionalism within the nanny industry as shown by this year’s winner of the Professional Nanny of the Year Award and the runners-up.

At the moment, nannies are childcare’s invisible professionals.

We want to see professional recognition for the important work you do because you deserve it, as do the parents who employ you and the thousands of young children you care for.

Next time you hear a Government minister say how Every Child Matters, let’s make sure it really is every child, including the ones you care for.

Today we are celebrating professionalism and excellence in home-based childcare.

Tomorrow we want you to have professional recognition and regulation to safeguard the future of the nanny profession, the families you work with and the children you care for.

Nanny registration

2009-09-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

You will be able to read the speech I have written arguing for nanny regulation in England on this site from Sunday.

Tell me what you think.

Do you agree? Then tell me and lobby your MP.

Do you disagree? Fine. I want to hear from you too.

Steiner EYFS exemptions are good news – but there’s still a long way to go to achieve equity and justice

2009-09-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

By Dr Richard House of the Open EYE (Early Years Education) Campaign (writing in a personal capacity)

The existing shortcomings of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in England are largely due to the Government’s intransigence in insisting that key, highly controversial aspects of the framework be compulsory and effectively non-negotiable, instead of being empowering professional guidelines.

On 30 June 2008 the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) announced the possibility of exemption from certain aspects of the EYFS framework, and then released the details of the procedure itself.

However, Open EYE was very sceptical about the genuineness of this eleventh-hour gesture towards the concerns that 7,800 citizens had expressed about the EYFS through the Open EYE Downing Street petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/OpenEYE, together with the Department’s own expert advisory group, and the 86 MPs who signed the Early Day Motion (EDM 1031) about the Open EYE campaign that was posted by Liberal Democrat MP Annette Brooke, Shadow Minister for Children, on 25 February 2008 (see http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=35228&SESSION=891).

At the time, for example, we wrote that “this is an expertly camouflaged exemption process; and once unearthed, we find a procedure that is labyrinthine in its bureaucratic complexity, presumably to minimise the number of exemption applications that make it as far as the minister’s desk …

“More generally, the very idea that nurseries or parents have to apply to a government department for their children to be given exemption from a Government-imposed developmental framework for pre-compulsory school-age children would, until very recently, have been quite unthinkable.”

It is instructive and telling that one of the few completed attempts to date to apply for a principled exemption from aspects of the EYFS, by a childminder from Warrington, was summarily refused, and for reasons which are still very difficult to comprehend.

While this is being actively pursued with the Department with the help of expert legal advice, it does confirm Open EYE’s fears that the EYFS exemption process was deliberately designed to make it virtually impossible for anyone to succeed in negotiating it successfully.

I know from speaking personally to several practitioners who have applied for EYFS exemption that the amount of time and energy that is required to engage with, and then persevere with, the extraordinarily bureaucratic procedure is hugely taxing; and the brute reality – on which the DCSF has no doubt been relying – is that there are very few practitioners or settings with the time, energy or resources to engage in this exhaustingly bureaucratic ‘cat-and-mouse’ game with the powers-that-be.

With the recent and welcome news that two Steiner settings have been successful in achieving certain exemptions from the statutory learning requirements, hopefully this will empower and encourage far more practitioners to challenge those aspects of the framework which they know threatens their children’s healthy development.

In short, the good news is that what was previously only a hypothetical possibility of exemption from some of the EYFS learning requirements has now become a welcome reality.

On equity grounds alone, therefore, it will in future be very difficult, if not impossible, for the DCSF to refuse exemption applications from other, non-Steiner settings who also have principled philosophical or pedagogical objections to the EYFS literacy, numeracy, ICT and other requirements – whether from nurseries, childminders, or from parents themselves.

In the coming months, the Open EYE Campaign and others will be very closely tracking the unfolding EYFS exemptions story, not least to ensure that equity and fairness obtain across the sector, and that those practitioners or parents who have principled objections to the developmental appropriateness of the EYFS learning requirements will be able to follow the welcome opening forged by the Steiner movement.

Dr Richard House is Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy at Roehampton University. He is also a trained Steiner teacher and a founding member of the Open EYE Campaign.

Ending the blame game

2009-07-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

Lawyer Nigel Shepherd suggests ways to reform divorce law to benefit families

Iain Duncan-Smith’s Centre for Social Justice published the Every Family Matters report on 13 July 2009.

There is much in what the report has to say that is to be supported, such as making pre-marital agreements much more binding and reviewing the way in which financial claims on divorce are dealt with.

However, in two areas, no-fault divorce and cohabitation law reform, it misses the mark. I want to look at the first of these two issues.

On 4 July 1996 (Independence Day, ironically) the Family Law Act got its Royal Assent. It had been a long and difficult road, fraught with political and media jousting, but for the first time we had a no-fault divorce system on the statute book.

All that was needed was for it to be implemented, which was scheduled to happen in 2000.

Unfortunately, however, it never got any further.

The Labour Lord Chancellor at the time, Lord Irvine, announced in June 1999 that “implementation had been deferred”. In January 2001 he confirmed that the Government had decided not to proceed and that when the opportunity arose it would be repealed.

Although that has never actually been done, it is to all intents and purposes a dead duck.

Despite the fact that in its final form there were many aspects of the 1996 Act that were problematic, the core feature of no-fault divorce was something that the majority of family law professionals and members of the public up and down the country considered to be a big step forward towards the more civilised divorce system that a civilised society deserves.

With its demise we are still stuck with our unsatisfactory current law and procedures, which have remained unchanged in principle since 1969.

Although it has been possible since then to get a divorce by mutual consent, this requires the couple to have been separated for at least two years. Otherwise the wait is five years.

Because the court’s powers to sort out all the housing, capital distribution and pension sharing issues (even by agreement between the couple) can be accessed only when the divorce has got through to decree nisi stage (and will be enforceable only on the final decree absolute), about three quarters of all divorces are based on the “fault grounds” of adultery or unreasonable behaviour.

This is not necessarily because either person specifically wants to blame the other, but because the family cannot afford, or does not want, to put their lives on hold for two years.

I have called the current procedure a “blame game”.

So what kinds of things happen in practice?

Let’s say I am asked to advise a wife, who has been having an affair for a few months. Her husband doesn’t know about it. He is the breadwinner and she is financially quite vulnerable. She tells me that the marriage has been unhappy for some time and that the adultery was a symptom rather than the cause of the breakdown.

She wants a divorce. She thinks he will accept that, but wants it to be done as amicably and cost-effectively as possible so that the family can move forward with their separate lives and still co-parent. She is very surprised that they cannot proceed simply on the basis that they both think the marriage is over.

I advise her that she could tell her husband about her affair and invite him to issue a divorce petition on that ground (we are still using these old-fashioned terms, but that will be changing in due course hopefully).

Unsurprisingly, she is not keen on this idea. I explain the only alternative is to go for an unreasonable behaviour petition.

She says that he’s not really been that unreasonable. But I explain that in practice it doesn’t take much to get an unreasonable behaviour petition through.

Family lawyers and judges know that, even though many clients understandably feel very angry and distressed and initially might want to throw the book at their other half, the reason for the divorce hardly ever makes any difference to the financial issues or, most importantly, the arrangements for the children.

So you put in gentle allegations, the other spouse is told it’s not worth defending (defended divorce is horribly expensive and even more stressful and what does it achieve if at least one of the couple is adamant the marriage is over?) and the judge effectively nods it through.

This is why I say it’s a game.

But it’s a game that has serious consequences.

The husband in this position is being accused of things he might strongly disagree with, but is advised he basically has to swallow his pride and get on with dealing with the other issues.

The wife didn’t want to have to do this, but had limited options because she needed to get access to the court’s powers. In particular, she needs a divorce to get a pension sharing order – it cannot be done by simple agreement.

Everything gets off on the wrong foot.

The 1996 Act started with some general principles to apply when marriage breaks down. These included that it should be brought to an end with minimum distress to the couple and their children and with issues dealt with in a way that promoted as good a continuing relationship between parents and children as possible.

It is self-evident that a system that pushes parents into making allegations that have no bearing on the important future financial and parenting planning conflicts with these objectives.

What we need is to persuade the politicians to look again at divorce reform and to introduce a true no-fault system.

Children are the priority. Their interests must be paramount.

A no-fault procedure won’t stop one or both parents feeling bitter and angry. But at least it won’t actively encourage recriminations in the formal process, which run the risk of affecting their ability to put the children first.

How should a reformed procedure work? It should be possible to issue divorce jointly or individually without attributing blame.

There would then be a six-month wait. After that, if one or both of the couple still feel that the marriage is over, the divorce will be finalised.

If they have already been separated at the time of the divorce application, the waiting period will be reduced by that separation period.

It is essential that any divorce process is backed up by widely available information to families about the various services that can help them through what will inevitably be a difficult period of their lives. This means information about couple and other counselling, mediation, legal principles and options and, of course, parenting.

The focus should be on equipping families to plan effectively for the future, not to dwell on the past.

Every Family Matters recognises that the present fault options in divorce can cause unnecessary distress and echoes the comments I have made above about the “game”.

However, on the very next page it says that some divorcing people want to be able to attribute blame and that it would be wrong to have a system that deprived them of that opportunity.

This is simply illogical.

If the system encourages accusation-making in circumstances where it makes no difference to the issues that really matter, retaining it just because it might make the aggrieved person feel better doesn’t make sense.

The report’s final conclusion is that, whatever the pros or cons, divorce reform was politically difficult to get it through last time and we should therefore not go down that road, as there are bigger family law battles to fight.

This is a fudge, and mirrors what has happened with the Government’s sidelining of essential cohabitation law reform.

It’s time to grasp the divorce reform nettle again.

It’s time to end the blame game in the interests of couples and, most importantly, their children.

Nigel Shepherd is a Partner at Mills & Reeve LLP, which has offices in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, London, Manchester and Norwich. He can be contacted on Nigel.shepherd@mills-reeve.com or via the website www.divorce.co.uk.

Safe, secure and happy

2009-07-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Steve Alexander, Chief Executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, says why being safe, secure and happy is every child’s right regardless of where they live

We all need to feel safe, secure and happy.

But in current times for an increasing number of people these fundamental foundations for life are not in place.

In May I attended a reception at No.10 to celebrate the opening of the 3,000th Sure Start children’s centre, a critical milestone in the delivery of the Government’s 10-year childcare strategy that moves the early years and childcare sector close to the original promise of a children centre for every community.

It was perhaps also tangible evidence of early years being “the New Frontier of the Welfare State”, as declared by Gordon Brown as the then Chancellor of Exchequer at the launch of the strategy some five years ago.

The children’s centre programme is not without its challenges.

We know this from our own direct experience across the Alliance and from research findings such as the Childcare and Early Years Providers survey, which showed that 52 per cent of all providers of children centres are operating at a loss.

However, with media attention focused on the MP expenses controversy, the opening of the 3000th children’s centre – despite its colossal cost contribution and the sheer hard work to get to that position – barely got a press mention and therefore did not reach the average person in the street.

Beverley Hughes has decided to stand down as Minister for Children at the time of writing this and we thought there might have been a change to the Secretary of State for Education as well.

The Alliance has worked hard to cultivate good working relationships with these key positions – a task never easy when our role as a “critical friend” demands on occasions we have to speak out against government.

Ed Balls has become an inexperienced supporter, intervening to save a Wakefield pre-school from eviction and independently identifying a Portsmouth play project featured in The Guardian for special analysis by Play England in order to generalise its benefits across the county.

Similarly Beverley Hughes has become a Minister publicly respecting the Alliance and whilst we have not always seen eye to eye, I am genuinely sorry to see her go.

New Ministerial appointments have been made and with these appointments, new relationships will be formed with the incoming Children’s Minister but inevitably it feels like starting again to brief Ministers of key issues that the Alliance and the sector has.

We must also expect the real possibility of a change in Government fuelled by recent events and results.

We work with all the major parties, but this particular time of heightened uncertainty and change could stall and disrupt the further investment and delivery in the 10-year plan.

It took a generation of effort to lobby and persuade government for financial support to make early years education a universal entitlement.

The Alliance was the originator of such pressure and its role today is vital to ensure the continued spotlight on early years and that Government listens to parents and member concerns in fully honouring the 10-year plan and vision.

We have not come this far to be deflected from our primary reason for being – to ensure that every child is given the opportunities and experiences for early years to be a foundation for life, regardless of their background.

So I do not want to follow the media or allow the present Parliamentary crisis to detract from the sectors agenda for change.

Here is a sample of what our members tell us are some of the major challenges.

The first major challenge for the sector is what Government calls the widening attainment gap.

There has been a threefold increase in poverty between 1979-90 which, in part, led to the Labour Government pledge to eradicate child poverty.

We understand and know it as unfairness and injustice that children from deprived communities with little disposable income and maybe with additional needs experience are penalised in our current system.

Where you live or the wealth of your parents should not determine your life chances. In the words of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, “Children who grow up in poverty are less likely to get qualifications and go on to higher education but more likely to become young parents themselves.”

The present economic downturn is likely to increase the number of children living in poverty. Unemployment is moving towards three million, everyone is feeling the pinch and home repossessions are at an all-time high.

For families experiencing this reality, being safe, secure and happy is further away than ever and for an increasing number of parents the daily challenge is to put a nutritious meal on the table.

In 2009 this is a travesty that the Alliance cannot and will not ignore.

Recently Contact a Family released some alarming findings concerning the experiences of families with disabled children.

It concluded that 60 per cent of parents did not have access to good play and leisure facilities.

Despite primary legislation to change attitudes and real investment in improving services, it seems that in 2009 and through the eyes of parents living with a disabled child, little has improved.

Difference in 2009 does appear to affect what services you access, the quality of the early years experience and indeed this has long-lasting and negative impact on your future life chances.

We have an unequal society that dreams of inclusion but where our media glorifies fame for 15 seconds and the pursuit of material possessions.

For an increasing number a fairly-paid job, a home and food seem equally unobtainable.

Even before the economic crisis, modern living was creating its own challenges.

Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the UK with latest figures saying that one in four children are obese, one in five eat no fruit and in the last decade British children got fatter, faster than anyone else in Europe.

The average child now watches 19 hours of TV per week and, in what may be regarded as the ultimate irony, lack of exercise was highlighted in the following quote given by the Chief Executive of McDonald’s – “There are fewer green spaces and kids sit at home playing computer games on the TV, when in the past they would have been burning energy off outside.”

Eighty per cent of UK households have microwaves and there has been a massive 44 per cent increase in the use of convenience foods. Yet we wallow in watching one celebrity chef programme after another.

We each consume a stone of chemicals a year in additives we eat and we are rapidly killing our children with “comfort food”.

It is not surprising that the Children’s Society Good Childhood report earlier this year said that children are more anxious than ever.

Despite the gains in the universal offer of childcare, inequalities and differences impair a child’s life chances.

Negative attitudes and restricted opportunities have become the shackles of inequality.

But it is not just attitudes and opportunities that need to improve.

You will recall a mentioned survey in August revealed that 52 per cent of full-day care providers in children centres were operating at a loss.

In the same month we heard that the high cost of childcare was stopping more than a quarter of parents on low incomes from working (a choice even more significantly depleted in June 2009).

In March the recession started to bite and the number of childcare providers reduced by 8,181 since August 2008, according to Ofsted figures.

The Raising the Bar report demonstrated what we all know in this room that raising standards in the early years is being jeopardised by poor pay and conditions.

This year’s survey of childcare costs again showed UK fees amongst the highest in Europe.

So what does all of this mean?

For me it shows beyond any doubt that market forces that have bought the world to its knees are equally ineffective in delivering a universal and sustainable early years support service.

Providers cannot make ends meet, parents can’t pay anymore and it is the goodwill of early years workers who are exploited yet again as they are working for corporate peanuts in a system that cannot pay a higher wage without substantial Government additional subsidy.

Market forces continue to be the method chosen to deliver the 10-year childcare strategy vision with the latest development to be the privatisation of Ofsted inspections.

A leaked communication reveals that “undervalued and demoralised” inspectors may soon find their work aborted to the private sector.

You may recall a consultation last year to raise the Ofsted fees by an average figure of 1,175 per cent that was roundly rejected by the sector and ultimately Government had to climb down over the proposals.

We are all concerned about the so-called equality gap but the paradox of running down quality assurance schemes while at the same time relying ever more heavily on Ofsted inspections to protect quality starts to look like insanity.

The problems of an increasingly overburdened Ofsted, that a year ago could not cover its costs, cannot be resolved by the magic touch of market forces since we are all aware of the inevitable obsession over price, margin and the need to cut corners.

The work of the Alliance is needed as much today as it was when Belle Tutaev took the first steps some 48 years ago.

The Alliance is getting stronger and bigger.

In the last four years our income has grown by 37 per cent and our new strategic plan launched in April will take us through our 50th year celebrations in 2011 and beyond.

Politics is at a crossroads and the 10-year plan is at risk of losing its spotlight.

The Alliance will ensure that the issues of the sector and its members reach the ear of politicians, policymakers and the media.

Whatever scandal occupies the airwaves, or reality TV show command the largest audience, we will remain tireless in our resolve and campaigning to deliver for every child the safe, secure and happy childhood that is every child’s right.

This is an edited version of the speech Steve was to deliver at the Pre-school Learning Alliance conference on Friday 19 June 2009. However, he was unable to do so as he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. We wish Steve well in his recuperation and trust he will soon return to full strength.