Professor Ken Muir’s report, Putting Learners at the Centre: Towards a Future Vision for Scottish Education, was provided to Scottish ministers in March 2022. The report included recommendations that the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland should develop a shared framework for the inspection of early learning and childcare (ELC).
The draft framework, published on 23 November, states that it aims to “provide clarity, including in respect of roles and responsibilities, consistency, a common language, streamline bureaucracy, be supportive, and reduce burdens and stress on staff”.
The original date to respond to the consultation questions was extended from 22 December to this Friday, 19 January (and can be completed here). These are our views on the implications of this draft document for the ELC sector. We note that the Scottish Out of School Care Network has already published its response.
There were hopes within the ELC sector that the intended shared framework would address some, and ideally all, of the intentions set out by Muir.
Then, in the midst of festive celebrations with children and families in ELC, the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland slipped out consultation for one of the poorest draft documents we have ever read.
The timing could not have been worse. Where was an already overworked and undervalued workforce going to find the spare time to read, reflect and respond to this, when they were immersed in maintaining quality programmes, nativity rehearsals and choruses of celebrations with children and families?
Also, it would have been advisable for the two agencies to develop a shared framework closely aligned with the national practice guidance for early childhood in Scotland, Realising the Ambition: Being Me, and to bring this out at a time when all involved could delve fully into its contents and respond accordingly.
As former ELC practitioners, who moved into quality assurance for the inspectorate and to the university sector respectively, we find that the draft inspection framework’s 87 pages fall well short of articulating a clear, credible, coherent message to its audience.
The promise of a reduction in inspection and greater consistency between the methods of inspection employed by the two culturally different agencies (and more “doing with” than “doing to”) will not be realised if this document is allowed to see the light of day after consultation.
We believe the new shared framework needs to be referenced to the national practice guidance for early years in Scotland, Realising the Ambition: Being Me.
There is significant scope for the proposed quality indicators to be underpinned by current research, in particular to reflect what is known nationally and internationally about sociocultural influences on children as they grow, develop and make transitions.
The draft for consultation reads as two separate frameworks, with bits of the existing Care Inspectorate quality framework and How Good Is Our ELC? cut and pasted together.
It is difficult to see what is considered new within most of the 16 proposed quality indicators (QI) - their presentation in this draft does not align with the internationally adopted model of quality assurance from the European Foundation for Quality Management.
The timescale for the reform of Education Scotland will increase levels of uncertainty for the ELC workforce. There is a lack of consistency and aspiration in the illustrations for each QI theme: they do not lend themselves to Scotland’s lauded self-evaluation approach.
Terminology is inconsistent and this underlines a split rather than a joint approach by the two agencies in developing the draft. For example, distinctly different concepts - such as ELC, care and education, care and learning, early education, care play and learning - are used interchangeably.
So, what can be done to work towards a more palatable offering to the ELC sector? By reaching out to colleagues in the early childhood sector we find they are toying with a number of options as they consider their response to the narrow set of consultation questions.
For our part, we wonder if we can:
1. Realistically expect a satisfactory shared framework, given the polarised purposes of the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland - Muir recommended a shared framework, he did not require it.
2. Start again with a more innovative approach, including a smaller number of QIs aligned to Realising the Ambition: Being Me using a “confidence statement” structure.
3. Appoint an expert writing team with no direct-line management accountability to either agency, in order to liberate the writers of the framework.
4. Maintain the status quo until the replacement for Education Scotland is announced and has time to embed in the sector.
5. Move beyond a shared framework to a truly shared inspection process, to release ELC from being the most over-inspected sector in Scotland.
We suggest the policy decision to seek a shared inspection framework needs to be predicated on reciprocal respect and mutual understanding between the Care Inspectorate and the inspectorate at Education Scotland.
This will eventually result in a shared process and discourse that could reflect, support and sustain a just and equitable system of early learning and childcare in Scotland, which the current draft fails to do.
Dr Marion Burns is a former Education Scotland inspector and co-author of the national guidance for early years in Scotland, Realising the Ambition: Being Me. Her current roles include devising a bespoke ELC leadership programme for Glasgow City Council
Aline-Wendy Dunlop is emeritus professor of education at the Strathclyde Institute of Education and a trustee at Parent Network Scotland
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