Labour must be ready to make an “immediate offer” to fix the early years workforce crisis if it wants to achieve its ambitions for the sector if elected into office next year, a prominent sector leader has warned.
Speaking to Tes after the shadow education secretary announced a Labour government would launch a review to look at how to increase primary school-based nursery provision, Early Years Alliance CEO Neil Leitch said any plans should have “substance” to fix the “grim” staff shortage in the sector.
His views were echoed by primary MAT leaders and sector experts who spoke to Tes after Bridget Phillipson announced a major review of the sector, including a full workforce review, at the party’s conference last week.
Ms Phillipson said she had appointed former chief inspector of schools Sir David Bell to carry out a major review of the sector, which would look at ways to increase the amount of primary school-based nursery provision amid falling birth rates, and how to remove restrictions on local authorities from opening them.
Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Wednesday, the shadow education secretary said the review would ensure a Labour government could “deliver our ambition for a modernised childcare system, from the end of parental leave to the end of primary school”.
Cathie Paine, CEO at REAch2 Academy Trust, welcomed the “ambitious” move but warned that any plan must “be clear about how it will be funded” and will not “add to the existing financial burdens on schools”.
“We would also hope for genuine engagement with sector experts and serving practitioners to ensure that the plan helps create a modernised childcare system that offers our youngest pupils the best possible start to their education,” she said.
She added that there is a “huge amount” of expertise within schools and that “any review should seek to understand the best practice that already sits within the system”.
“Having experienced so much change already in recent years, we need to embed what works more widely, as well as changing what does not,” Ms Paine said.
‘Grim’ workforce shortage in early years
Early Years Alliance’s Mr Leitch said the main focus of Labour’s plan should be to make early years an “appealing” area to work in to combat the “grim” workforce shortage in the sector.
“To keep people in the sector, you’ve got to have substance,” Mr Leitch said.
“It’s no good having a glossy brochure or a wonderful marketing campaign if you don’t change the fundamentals,” he added.
Over a third (35 per cent) of early years staff were considering leaving the sector, according to an Early Years Alliance report published in October 2021.
Most said their desire to flee was due to feeling undervalued by the government (77 per cent), followed by job-related stress (72 per cent) and poor pay (57 per cent).
The Early Years Alliance called for an ”emergency financial rescue package” for early years providers in a manifesto for the next government published this week, after a Freedom of Information request by the organisation revealed that funding for 3- to 4-year-olds in 2020-21 was just two-thirds of the level of the costs of delivery the government predicted in 2015.
Primary-led nurseries must be ‘developmentally appropriate’
Some MAT leaders and experts also warned the move towards primary-led nurseries must not result in young children effectively starting school earlier.
Dan Morrow, CEO of Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust, said it would be important to “guard against bringing key stage 1 into early years and respect the unique skills, knowledge and understanding needed”.
And Tammy Campbell, early years director at the Education Policy Institute, warned that primary school-led nurseries must remain as a “developmentally appropriate environment for the youngest kids”, and not increase the “downward pressure” of exams when children are not ready for them.
However, Rachael Howell, CEO at Stour Academy Trust, which has eight primary schools, some of which are in some of the most deprived areas of the country, said the three nurseries run by her trust are crucial to setting “stronger foundations” for success in areas such as phonics, as it allows teachers to have an “impact on children at the most impressionable age”.
She added that this means issues such as speech and language difficulties can be nipped in the bud as they are “addressed at a prime time when children are still learning to form words”.
Marc Jordan, chief executive of the Creative Education Trust, which has taken nursery provision in-house at all of the trusts’ primary schools, agrees.
“The earlier you can have an impact, the more you can do for each child to set them on the road,” he said.
“We came to an early realisation that effective education for all children, particularly in the challenged communities where we have chosen to work, required us to have control of quality throughout the system,” he added.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer previously announced an ambition to ensure half a million more pupils meet early learning goals by 2030.
School nurseries: an effective recruitment tool
Ms Howell added she would welcome the chance to open more nurseries on school sites if local authority restrictions were lifted under a Labour government, not least because they have proved to be an effective recruitment and retention tool for teachers with young children as they offer wraparound care
She added that she insists that staff being recruited into the trust’s school-based nursery provision should have qualified teacher status (QTS) as they provide ”a key foundation in everything else that we do”.
But Dr Campbell warned that making sure that new teachers recruited to work in primary-based school nurseries have the skills and knowledge to work with the youngest children is “really, really important”.
“Obviously, it’s a very different sort of work with 2-year-olds compared to 6-year-olds,” she said.
Ms Howell added that school and trust management also needed to understand that the approach to “how you deal with parents, funding, staffing ratios and regulations” is “very different” to managing primary settings.
Beatrice Merrick, chief executive at charity Early Education, also warned that schools will need to think about “the suitability of the school estate”.
“Your average primary classroom is not necessarily going to be suitable for a two- or three-year-old child,” she said.
Mr Morrow added that the Labour review focus must be led by the early years foundation stage (EYFS) sector rather than “school-led”.
“The role of nurseries and private, voluntary and independent settings are essential and often overlooked,” he said.
Labour has been approached for comment.
