'There will be tears'

The announcement that Nick Clegg has told conservatives today that he will block government reforms to adult-child ratio limits for child carers is a welcome development.

Clegg is reported as saying that he could no longer back the plan to increase the number of children nursery staff can look after.

The ratio changes are set to be implemented in England in September and currently David Cameron supports the proposals issued by tory education minister Liz Truss even though 95% of sector workers disagree.

Statutory ratios are set to rise from 3 children per adult to 4 children per adult for under twos and from 4 children to 6 children for over twos.

Indeed one of the most unhelpful comments that I have heard is ‘If the staff cannot cope with that level of children then they should be sacked for incompetence’.

The point that the Government is missing is that we are not only asking our staff to just ‘cope’ with our children (maybe we could ‘cope’ with 4 babies for one day,), but we  we are also expecting them  to stimulate, engage, develop and nurture these babies.  

We would do well to remember that these babies are away from their homes, trying to re-settle; to re-adjust to new surroundings and learning to trust a person who they barely know whilst mum and dad find ways to pay the ever growing pile of bills.

Furthermore, we expect our staff to arrive at 7:15am looking groomed, bright-eyed and full of new creative ideas for their children. There is not a minute’s down-time and, in our setting, it is unacceptable just to put these children in front of a screen. I have yet to meet any parent who could maintain that at home with one or two children – let alone four. Oh and it goes without saying that should a staff member lose their patience, raise their voice or just flake out then they would be open to a charge of professional misconduct! 

At Berkhamsted Day Nursery we pay our staff well over the average nursery practitioner’s salary (which is between £14K -£16K) and we have a generous bonus scheme. Our staff have over 30 days annual leave compared with the sector average 20 days. Nevertheless these key workers remain the most overworked and under paid sector within childcare and education.

Regardless of the Government proposals we will continue to keep our ratios at the current level. The safety and welfare of the children and staff is not something with which we are prepared to experiment. In any case I am not prepared to risk losing my excellent nursery staff team, especially as recruiting high quality staff for the nursery is one of the greatest challenges that we face.