The Tes article last week “The slow erosion of EYFS and why it matters for all schools” was a timely read for anyone interested in early years provision - which, as the headline says, should really be anyone in education.
It summed up a situation that we are all too familiar with: the current funding system doesn’t add up; the children who stand to gain most from great early education struggle to access it; attracting, retaining and developing staff is getting ever more challenging; and schools are now having to intervene more in Reception to address the gaps in children’s skills.
What’s more, all of this has been compounded by the after effects of Covid. It is a tough time to be in early years and therefore it is not surprising that a rising number of settings are closing.
Fixing the problems in early years
So far, so bleak - but if we know what the problems are then maybe we can start to think about solutions? Well, as the article alluded to, perhaps the answer can come, in part, from trusts taking a more active role in expanding early years provision.
At Ark this was an approach we started thinking about in 2018, recognising the demand in the communities that we serve for high-quality early education and the urgent need that middle- and lower-income families have for flexible, affordable childcare all year round.
To do this, we established Ark Start, offering high-quality pedagogy, teacher-led classrooms and flexible delivery in nurseries that are open all day, all year round.
We opened our first two nurseries in 2020 and 2021 and they are on site at two of our schools. But as we expand, we are preparing to cast our net more widely. We plan the opening of two more settings this academic year.
We currently have over 120 children across our Ark Start nurseries in South London. We employ 20 staff, some of whom work across both sites.
We operate as a multi-academy trust-governed but independently managed not-for-profit (private, voluntary or independent) nursery group, funding ourselves through a combination of government funding, private fees for additional hours (at an accessible rate) and philanthropic grants.
By doing that we can keep costs as low as possible for families, with every family able to access their entitlements free of charge.
Stronger together
While we work in close partnership with host schools and share expertise across our primary network, we employ dedicated Ark Start nursery staff and we don’t add to the management load of our primary principals.
Part of what makes it difficult to run a small standalone nursery or to open nursery classes in schools is the lack of resilience if numbers change or staff leave.
In the same way that schools work together in trusts, nurseries can achieve economies of scale, move staff around and establish best practice more easily by working together in a group.
Staff planning and training meetings, as well as regular supervision, are written into the timetable to ensure that everyone is receiving development and training for roughly 10 per cent of their typical working week.
We are still learning and evaluating our work and will continue to refine our approach as we grow. The problems faced by the early years sector are important and complex, and collaboration is a vital part of any attempt to solve them.
Getting more trusts involved
We are keen to talk to others working on fresh ideas to get quality early years provision to the children who need it most. Our hope is that more schools and trusts will join us in building a strong foundation for our very youngest learners and together we can turn the tide.
It has not been an easy journey and in the past six years I have developed a much deeper understanding and appreciation of the work of the wider early years sector, but I also firmly believe in an enhanced role for the school system, particularly school trusts.
Current government funding entitlements see early years as “childcare” and a way to ensure that parents, particularly mothers, can rejoin the workforce. This overlooks what we in education already know: early years is a critical stage of a child’s education - the foundation stage.
We must recognise it and value it as such.
Katie Oliver is director of Ark Start
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