The team who came seemed genuinely interested as they interviewed parents collecting their children from nursery, talking to a range of parents with different working hours and childcare arrangements. Some access only the free hours for pre-schoolers, some use a mixture of nursery and family help and some rely on us for all of their childcare needs. The presenter then interviewed me and wanted to know why childcare was expensive.

As usual, I explained that up to 70% of revenue could go directly on staff costs. Business rates, rent, utilities, resources all cost us increasingly more, as they do everyone in this economic climate. But I also explained how the fact that the government payment for funded sessions doesn’t cover the cost of delivery, so effectively parents using other parts of nursery services (under 3s and hours outside the free sessions) are cross-subsidising the ‘free’ services the government make us offer. This is still not something that most people understand, and is only set to get worse as the free entitlement for 2 year olds is rolled out over the next few years.

We would also like to see a level playing field with the maintained sector; if we build a new room or convert some existing space to offer more places for 2 year olds, we are charged 20% VAT. If the school down the road does, or the Sure Start centre, they pay nothing. Forgive me if we don’t all rush out to try and make more 2 year old places available!

The arguments are not new, but there is certainly more that the government could do to keep the price of childcare affordable. Instead of encouraging the ‘but you all make a profit, don’t you?’ line of thought (actually many nurseries make very small profit levels), the real point is that there is nothing wrong with making a profit, as a profitable business is a healthy one, able to invest in new resources, well trained staff and better facilities. I will wait and see how the programme is edited when it airs – 24th May, if you want to see it, but I hope it goes some way to making people realise how complex the issues in the sector are, and how a few headlines grabbing initiatives from the government will not solve the deeply rooted problems of how families are supposed to balance the cost of childcare with their own budgets.

These days it is essential that nursery staff have a really good understanding of child development – indeed, the Early Years Foundations Stage depends on it. There are options to progress from NVQ 2 and 3 to complete a degree in Early Years and Childcare, and even to become and Early Years Professional, which is considered to be on a par with a Teaching qualification. There is real career progression and there are many different career options, whether it is working in the private or voluntary sector, joining the Local Authority advisory team or becoming an OFSTED inspector. 

The days have gone where it was just something to do with the less able students, but schools and colleges must recognise this too. However, the most important issue with upskilling the Early Years workforce is cost. Better educated and better qualified staff quite rightly want to earn more. Parents can barely afford the current cost of childcare in the UK, so how do we continue to improve qualifications without increasing the cost to our customers?

That is really the subject of a whole different article, but suffice it to say, it is time we really tackled this issue and the Government looked at reviewing staff:child ratios (the UK has some of the highest in the world), reducing VAT on capital expenditure, reviewing business rates and ensuring that the funding for 3 and 4 years olds (and increasingly, 2 year olds) truly covers the cost of the sessions, to avoid parents effectively cross subsidising these sessions by paying higher rates for younger children and longer hours.

The Panorama programme last month touched on some of these issues, but as a nation we need to have a well informed debate about how we want to make childcare more affordable and how we can support working families better. Do let me know what you think…….

When I book a hotel, I frequently look to see what other visitors have said about the site, but any criticism is always taken with a pinch of salt, and the overall tone of comments is far more important to me than one or two negative reviews. Customers are all different and one size rarely fits all, so there has to be room for many opinions on a service or product. In the same way, it seems to me that feedback on care homes and nurseries will be equally mixed, but at least gives prospective customers a chance to see what existing users think.

Websites like Netmums and Mumsnet have long had forums for parents to discuss childcare options and personal opinion is freely available. As service providers, we have to embrace this type of review and engage where we are able to – most sites allow the provider the right to reply. I am however, rather concerned to read that the goodcareguide site is going to allow providers to buy an enhanced listing, which would give them higher visibility and also enhanced rights of reply to comments. I had hoped this would be a truly open forum which allowed free dialogue, but it appears to be a carefully constructed basis for advertising and promotion of those providers who choose to pay to join the site. The operators will have to be careful, or the initial view that it is a fresh new forum may fade and it will simply become another listing site advertising homes and nurseries.

If you are one of our customers, what do you think of this new site? We have no comments about us yet, for any of our nurseries, so I will be watching closely!

Whenever it is time for staff to leave, I feel sad, especially when some of them have either been with us a long time, or if they are really key to our work. However, every cloud really does have a silver lining and it is exciting to make changes and seek out new team members with new skills and a fresh outlook. The upside of this econonomic recession is the availability of high quality staff at the moment; having recently advertised a part-time administrative post, I had over 20 applicants, most of whom were more than qualified for the job.

This week we welcome a new Operations Manager to our team, so I will be spending the next few weeks taking her round all our sites and introducing her to all the staff. It will be a busy time but a great excuse to get out and about and really focus in on every nursery and club and discuss their issues and celebrate their successes.

As a sector we are well used to change, so I know that all our staff will take the changes in senior personalities well. We still have the revised Early Years Foundation Stage to look forward to, which is not due to be publised until the end of March, so we will have a busy few months over the summer making sure everyone is up to speed on that. The code of practice for the Early Years Funding is also being revised and Professor Cathy Nutbrown is carrying out a review of workforce qualifications right now, so it seems likely that yet more change will come our way.

However, there seems to be an air of acceptance and readiness for new challenges across our nurseries as we come to the end of January and this is a great time to look ahead at what else we hope to achieve this year. If you are part of our team or one of the parents whom we value so much, do let us know what you think we should be focussing on and help us to steer the ship in the right direction.

That leaves me to wish you all a Happy Year of the Dragon!

In India the market in pre-school education seems to have exploded in just a few years. There are now several large chains offering franchised pre-schools, with growth from a handful of sites to several hundred, but at the same time there seems to be a level of dissatisfaction amongst franchisees, who are not rushing to sign back up after their minimum 3 year tie-in. This could be because the franchisors see pre-schools purely as a money making venture, so the passion which makes a setting more than just a business is lacking. The fundamental premise of the franchise model is that both sides gain from the relationship, so it will be interesting to see how these groups fare in the long term.

I did not visit any of the large groups, but instead met owners and operators of single site or small group operations and I could not have been made more welcome. Despite the fantastically awful traffic in Bangalore, which made getting around a real challenge, I was greeted like royalty and the owners seemed genuinely interested to see what I thought of their settings and how they compared to what we do in the UK.

What struck me most was the level of child-initiated play, or rather the total lack of it in some settings.  Most were what we would consider to be quite old fashioned, with almost totally adult led activities, including some little desks for children as young as 2. The prevalence of worksheets would have made the average OFSTED inspector turn in his or her grave, but these are diligently prepared by staff and completed by children, in order to show parents that children have been learning.

Most resources were stored out of range of children and were selected by staff, there was very little free access or self-selection. I was also not surprised to see the amount of plastic that was in evidence, as this is seen as being modern and ‘Western’, yet the availability of craftsmen and cheap labour could so easily be harnessed to create lots of wonderful natural material resources. However, I guess that might look like a cheap option to parents, who seem to like the colourful plastic offerings. So, the same challenge exists in India as here, when it comes to educating parents about how we can help children’s development.

I suppose one of the major differences is that for us the main cost of delivering care is staff salaries, and any increase in ratios can be very expensive. In India labour is much cheaper, but rents and building costs can be very high in metropolitan areas. There were two very different groups of staff within every nursery we saw, those who were teachers (all graduates, some with masters degrees), and then domestic assistants, who appeared to provide the cuddles and personal care, whilst teachers were much more focused on academic achievement.

I did visit one nursery which was run by a fantastic lady who had lived and worked in Lewisham, London and hers was the only nursery which would have been close to something we would operate here. Interestingly, it has a fantastically multi-cultural group of children, including a lot of US and European children, whose parents work in the IT businesses which are such a feature in Bangalore.  There are groups who are beginning to recognize the importance of a more homely environment, especially for the youngest children, but in a culture where education is so highly prized, and good schools are so competitive, it must be a struggle to convince parents that learning through play really is the way forward.

It will be interesting to see how the childcare market in India moves forward; there is huge potential for growth, but no regulation whatsoever and unlikely to be any in the near future. Even schools are only  partially regulated and many parents don’t seem terribly bothered whether they are or not. Will demand see growth of quality provision, or just growth in numbers, and will parents become more choosy about what they want – and more importantly, can afford? Time will tell, but I did come home feeling good about the progress we make year on year here in the UK and the very real focus on child-centered provision which recognizes the needs of the individual.

Overall changes to tax and benefits for families over the last 18 months have mostly been detrimental to those who want to work, so this is certainly a welcome step. However, the detail of how the Universal Credit will work is still to be published and much lobbying is still taking place to ensure the most disadvantaged are protected and those who want to work really do find it financially worthwhile.

We will keep you updated as details are released and can only hope that families see the benefits of being in work and that childcare can eventually become more affordable for all, without providers having to lower fees by providing lower quality.

Neil started the day (after a very humourous introduction) by telling us that currently in the UK 1 in 4 children never have a book read to them at home. Even for those of us who think ‘that’s not me’, I bet many of us are guilty of saying ‘hurry up and choose a book’ or complaining at reading the same story for the umpteenth time?  Reading with a child can be such a pleasure and by treating books as something special and something to be treasured, we can inspire a love of reading in our children. At nursery we have the same opportunity to inspire young minds, so Neil challenged us all to think again about how read to children in our group settings, and how to make it a really exciting experience.

One of the cardinal sins we became aware of is to be a reading snob. If Heat magazine is your thing, then be proud of it! It doesn’t have to be a Charles Dickens novel to interest a child, and if they see you reading regularly and with pleasure, they will also see reading as an enjoyable pass time and something to be enjoyed, rather than a school based activity that they have to do. All of you who have endured the tales of ‘Chip, Biff and Kipper’ in the school book bag will know that a dull book read because you have to, can be a massive turn off. Instead, embrace what your child is interested in, be it bugs, diggers, fairies or Peppa Pig!

Have a look at our Facebook Page to see how Neil inspired our staff from Faringdon, Filkins, Benson and Innsworth and do ask them to tell you more about it. We hope to run the same training in the Lincoln area shortly, but in the meantime, do have a look at Neil’s website if you’d like some great reads to enjoy with your children. www.cornertolearn.co.uk

The discussion this time arose from an article on the website of controversial psychologist Aric Sigman. He quotes studies showing that cortisol levels rise in children in daycare up until they are 3 years old. However, he also said that only mum could counteract this, so babies cared for by fathers, grandparents or other carers could also suffer from stress. http://www.aricsigman.com/

A welcome opposing view (for all mums who occasionally need to be parted from their babies for whatever reason) comes from Professor Dorothy Bishop, from Oxford University, who questions whether stress is detrimental to children’s development. She suggests that mild levels of stress can be good for development and provides increased resilience. http://oscci.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/dorothy-bishop

Whatever your view, or that of the academics, the fact is clear that parents do need day care (or childminders or grandparents) to help them to juggle their busy lives, so surely we all need to work as hard as possible in developing close relationships with the children in our care. We need to constantly reflect on the environment in which we care for babies and reduce any factors which can cause stress. At The Old Station Nursery Group we have worked with baby expert Mary Barlow, to create the most homely environments possible for our under 2s in particular. We don’t have a ‘sleep room’ but a bedroom, and where possible have a comfortable chair in there with a box of books and a little lamp, so that feeds can be given as they would be at home, before a quiet sleep.

Day care is here to stay, so let’s use this academic research to help us to improve our practice, rather than giving parents yet another guilt trip!

We all recognise that childcare fees are a huge cost for parents, but in the UK, where the Government does not see Early Years care as a high priority, parents have to pay the majority of fees. As a nursery provider, we see about 70p in every pound paid by parents go directly out on salaries, so with the running costs of the buildings rising for us, as for every household, the scope to be financially viable is ever more challenging. Yes, in some areas nurseries can charge a premium and have waiting lists for places, but it is far more common for a lot of nurseries to be working hard to increase occupancy and reduce costs, whilst paying staff a fair wage.

There are many things that could be done to help reduce the cost of childcare, including a review of business rates for nursery buildings, which are currently charged in the same bracket as retail premises. Nursery businesses still pay VAT on new builds, whereas school premises don’t. Employer childcare vouchers have been reduced to only cover lower rate tax payers, leaving the ‘squeezed middle’ who may be paying a large percentage of salary on childcare fees wtihout any help. Tax credits have been reduced, which certainly hurts those on the lowest incomes.  All in all, it is a bleak picture out there, with many parents considering whether it is worth going back to work at all.

The report published yesterday calls for the Government to ensure a minimum of 80% childcare costs are covered under Universal Credit up to current weekly limits and that over time this be increased to 100%.  We all know that in the current economic climate there are limited funds to go round, but if we want to support parents in returning to work and keeping their heads above water financially until their children go to school, we will have to think hard as a society about how we can do this.

To read the full report, visit www.daycaretrust.org.uk