Creche standards: Key lessons must be learned
WHILE much has been made in the last week about the levels of care provided in creches and pre-schools, key questions hang over regulation of education standards.
About €170m a year has been paid to more than 3,000 pre-school providers since 2010 to provide a year of pre-school for every child in the country. But the State has yet to devise and roll out a system of inspections to assess how well, or what, children are being taught in return for taxpayers’ money during the free early childhood care and education (ECCE) year.
When Education Minister Ruairi Quinn took office in Mar 2011, his officials provided him with guidance on the current plans for just such a system, 14 months after the universal programme of pre-school education introduced by the previous government was first offered.
“Inspections of ECCE are conducted by the HSE where the focus is largely on health and safety issues and compliance with regulations governing early childhood provision,” he was told, according to previously unpublished briefing notes. “There has not as yet been a focus on accountability for educational outcomes in ECCE commensurate with the level of investment in early years’ education by the State.”
It was planned to assign five inspectors to evaluate 16 centres in the ECCE sector which operates the free pre-school scheme, with those pilot inspections set to take place that autumn. The idea was to “mirror the approach” used in Northern Ireland where inspectors from the education and health sectors collaborate in evaluating early childhood education settings.
More than two years later, parents of about 70,000 children due to avail of the ECCE year from next autumn still have no assurance that they can expect the educational standards of the centre they attend will be properly assessed.
Nor is it clear who will carry out the educational assessments, which childcare sector representatives want done by people with expertise or qualifications in early childhood education.
Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald told the Dáil last month it will be similar to that in place for primary schools, but the national inspection system is still being developed. It will eventually be under the remit of the Child and Family Agency for which a bill is promised to be introduced in the Dáil before TDs take their summer holidays.
But Ms Fitzgerald said she believes the public health nurses who already carry out HSE inspections of childcare facilities can do the educational inspections, along with HSE environmental health officers.
“We have public health nurses who are trained on the standards and they will get training on the new standards,” she said.
The findings of creche and childcare inspection reports published in the Irish Examiner over many years have highlighted strengths but also weaknesses in how HSE regulations were being met in relation to child learning, development and well-being.
The Department of Education has told us its pilot joint evaluations with inspectors of the HSE’s early years and pre-school section found good practice, particularly in the quality of personal care, relationships around children, and the physical and material environment in the range of community, voluntary and private providers they visited. But the unpublished report of last year’s pilot inspections also highlight shortcomings found in the evaluations.
“It highlighted the need for settings to plan and implement a more clearly structured programme of learning activities that promotes all aspects of children’s development,” the department said. “In particular, the evaluation pointed to the need for settings to provide programmes of learning that are linked to Aistear [the curriculum framework published in 2009].”
But while Aistear gives childcare providers, pre-schools, and playgroups a set of benchmarks against which they should check themselves, there is no set curriculum for learning among the under-sixes. While primary schools are expected to use Aistear to inform play-based learning for junior and senior infants, there is no such requirement in ECCE settings, even for those that are now heavily funded by parents and other taxpayers.
What is wrong with people 1st the baby in china flushed down a toilet & now an enquiry into child abuse in dublin creche's #disgusting
— Sharon Farrington (@farrings) May 29, 2013
Further information on the pilot inspections, provided by the Department of Children, says deficiencies found in some services related to the need to:
*Develop the quality of education provision;
*Ensure good curriculum planning;
*Observe children’s activities so that skills could be developed.
The compliance questionnaires circulated to more than 4,000 services paid to deliver the free pre-school year ask about their engagement with Aistear. A 2011 survey shows all but a few dozen are at least aware of the curriculum framework.
However, despite what Department of Education inspectors found over a year ago, there is still no requirement for them to follow its guidance.
Rather than being a very specific set of courses under different subject headings, like the curricula that must be followed in primary and second-level, Aistear is non-prescriptive. But its use should assure parents that their children’s pre-school or childcare service — whether it’s a Montessori centre, a playgroup, or other setting — is meeting a uniform standard devised through years of research by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
The council’s director of early years education, Arlene Forster, helped to devise Aistear and a toolkit that gives service providers and parents guidance on best practice. The support sessions for those wishing to adopt Aistear are run by city and county childcare committees and by children’s organisations like Barnardos.
“When Aistear was published, we quickly decided we can’t support the sector, but we can do something to give practical support to services. We have learned from experience that publishing a document won’t change anything, you have to have support behind it,” said Ms Forster.
Ms Fitzgerald has said the new national standards for childcare providers to issue in a few months will make the following of Síolta — a national quality framework for early education — and Aistear a requirement.
“They will be the standards we require and then the inspection systems will be adjusted. They will inspect those, as well as taking on board the findings from pilot inspections, which were the first done jointly between the Department of Education and my department,” said Ms Fitzgerald. “The results from those evaluations are being taken on board in discussions about standards.”
But while those standards are due to be published later this year, when they will be applied or when compliance with them will be measured remains very much unclear.
*1999Ready to Learn, a government white paper on early childhood education, proposes “... that where early educational services are provided, in accordance with the quality or developmental provisions ... one inspector with expertise in both public health and education should carry out the inspection and provide a single report on all aspects of provision.”
*2005 Then education minister Mary Hanafin announces a free year of pre-school in 150 disadvantaged areas. National Economic and Social Forum recommends a free pre-school year for every child in the country, a suggestion backed by the National Parents’ Council-Primary.
*2006 Síolta, a national quality framework for early childhood education, is published. Produced by the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education at St Patrick’s College in Dublin, it is aimed at allowing early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings evaluate their level of quality provision and determine the quality of their service .
*2009April: Special budget includes announcement of a year of pre-school education for all children from 2010, using €170m saved from abolition of the early childcare supplement
October: Aistear curriculum framework is produced by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, guiding service providers on the level of learning and education they should offer for children from birth through to the age of six.
*2010January: Free year of ECCE for every child in the country begins, running in parallel with school year from Sept 2010
November: Education minister Mary Coughlan and children’s minister Barry Andrews publish a workforce development plan for the ECCE sector in Ireland, recommending how staff can upskill, and identifying career paths for the sector. It says a progress report should be published every two years by the Early Years Education Policy Unit (co-located in the Department of Education and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs). The first such report is currently being finalised, according to the department.
*2011March: New government takes office. Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is told by officials a pilot inspection system of educational standards is planned for that autumn, jointly by his own inspectors and HSE.
July: Commitments in the national literacy and numeracy Strategy published by Ruairi Quinn include that the Department of Children will arrange for regular monitoring and review of curricular practice in ECCE pre-school year and other settings. It says the Government would clarify what it expects children to learn and develop in ECCE settings.
“The curriculum should define the knowledge, skills and attitudes that we expect children to acquire in school and ECCE settings and it should shape the learning experiences that we provide for young people,” it said.
Further commitments include improvements in professional skills of early childhood teachers in areas such as literacy, numeracy, and working with children with special needs.
*2012First six months: Pilot inspections at 15 providers in the free ECCE scheme, good care practices found but so too are deficiencies in areas of curriculum and teaching.
November: Report of pilot inspections given to Department of Education and Department of Children and Youth Affairs; this has not yet been published.
*2013May: Education Minister Ruairi Quinn proposes a second free year of pre-school, already proposed by Social Protection Minister Joan Burton and Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald, which might be funded by part of the €2bn child benefit budget of the Department of Social Protection. But quality needs to be improved in existing service, including by state investment in ensuring staff have the proper qualifications. This year, 68,000 children — 95% of those who are eligible — are availing of the free pre-school year, at a cost of €175m. The Department of Children estimates a second free year would cost an extra €150m to €175m a year.
A major question around improving the experience of children in early care and education revolves around qualification levels of creche and pre-school workers.
A 2011 survey of the sector by Pobal, which administers the free pre-school year for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, shows that three quarters of the 17,000 staff working directly with children in the 3,133 facilities who responded had a level 5 qualification or higher.
But Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald wants it to be a condition that all workers in all childcare services should have this as a bare minimum, possibly from next year, with any such qualification to include a module on child protection.
While the sector fully supports the upskilling of staff, views differ on who should pay. Senator Katherine Zappone says we need a workforce fit for purpose but we must question if current training systems provide it.
“The professionals need strong qualifications, not unlike our primary school teachers. The majority of those teaching in primary school today have benefited from State-funded B Eds [degrees], so I ask why should this not also be the case for those working in early years education,” she told Ms Fitzgerald in the Seanad last Thursday.
The issue came up in a Seanad discussion with the minister about the disturbing revelations on mistreatment of children in some creches in last week’s Prime Time documentary.
She has since told the Irish Examiner she wants €10m to put towards pre-service training of staff and continuous professional development in the sector. But she expects for-profit businesses and workers themselves to contribute. “Building towards everybody having qualifications is the critical issue, that’s the pr-iority. But there’s no one simple solution to the issues facing the sector, there’s no simple solution to what we saw on Prime Time,” she said.
If you are trying to pick a service for your child’s free pre-school year, you could ask if — or suggest — they use some of the following practices suggested in Aistear.
Sharing information about the curriculum with parents
*Use a noticeboard to let parents know what activities children do each day.
*Tell parents know which topics interest their child, find out their interests at home.
*Organise information sessions for parents, focusing on learning and development, such as the importance of play.
Sharing resources with parents
*Make leaflets, tip sheets, DVDs, and other resources available to parents.
*Lend storybooks, song or rhyme CDs.
*Make learning kits with activity ideas.
*Share easy-to-read books on child development.
*Invite parents to join in activities and learn what their children do.
*Find an Aistear toolkit at: www.ncca.ie/earlylearning
Aistear guidelines from the NCCA suggest children’s learning be supported through partnerships with parents, interactions, play, and assessment. Learning and development are addressed under four themes:
*Wellbeing;
*Identity and belonging;
*Communication;
*Exploring and thinking.
Under the wellbeing heading, for example, adults should help young children of pre-school and primary infant ages to predict and cope with changes or stressful life events.
They should create chances for children to share and take turns, and help children cope and try again if they experience failure.
For communication, non-verbal skills should be developed (eg, encouraging them to read each other’s expressions and body language), as should listening skills (memorising lists through games, or listening to each other telling and reading stories).
They might also be encouraged to talk about their own or other children’s feelings, and to develop their language with chances to speak and listen, language games such as I-Spy, rhyming words, or tongue twisters. The use of open-ended questions to get them to think aloud is encouraged. For example: “I wonder are fairies real”, or “How do aeroplanes stay up in the sky?”
Early writing and understanding of numbers should also be part of learning in the age categories from two-and-a-half through to six that include the time in pre-school.
Another important stage of children’s development at these ages is how they make sense of things, places and people in their world.
This is done by interacting with others, playing, questioning, and then forming, testing, and refining ideas.
Aistear is the roadmap by which pre-schools and creches can plot how they work with children up to the age of six.
Although aimed as much at parents, it means service providers have a system against which they can plan how to make learning enjoyable and challenging for children in their care, right through to senior infants in primary school.
It is also designed to give children the skills needed for the type of learning they will encounter when they progress beyond infant classes.
But, says Arlene Forster, who led its development, Aistear is about more than a child’s social development. She is a director in the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) with responsibility for early childhood education.
“It looks at ways services can develop children’s ability to communicate and that’s not just about language. It’s also about developing them creatively, physically, and socially, how they get on with each other, and the way they see the world and understand it.
“Yes, it’s also about helping them towards the next steps [in primary school] but a big part of Aistear is about helping them enjoy each day.”
While NCCA’s role has been to devise the framework — which can be used in conjunction with, rather than displacing any other curriculum — it has also designed a toolkit to allow parents and providers follow best practices. Pre-schools and other services can avail of Aistear sessions run by city or county childcare committees or bodies such as Barnardos.
Ms Forster says Aistear is about the child’s whole development.
“If the environment is interesting for a child, it supports their learning.”
AROUND 60 children play and learn in a two-room prefab in the Cork harbour village of Aghada every day.
“We work from a portable building, with two playrooms, a toy store, toilets and my office which doubles up as a kitchen. But what really matters to us is the quality of what’s happening with the children,” says manager Mary Crotty.
“It could be the most beautiful building but it mightn’t be worth a thing if what’s going on inside isn’t right.”
Over the last 10 years, she says the Aghada Community Playgroup’s good reputation has seen children coming from a wide catchment area to avail of their services.
For Mary and her staff, the emphasis is on the experience of the children. She is working on a part-time degree in early childhood studies and practice. Until last year, the playgroup received a higher payment for each of the 45 children taking part in the Government’s free pre-school year under the early childhood care and education (ECCE) programme. But because the qualification of one of the two staff with a level 8 degree is no longer in line with the criteria, a reduced capitation is now paid, although Mary hopes that will reverse when she graduates.
“It’s a non-profit making organisation so all the finances go back into the service. While it has to be run with a business head, the main driving force is what’s best for the children.
“We pay the staff properly, which is still very low, so only a small couple of people have left, one went to do a full-time degree.”
All the key workers have relevant qualifications and nobody does anything alone with a child unless they have the full qualifications.
The leaders in the playgroup have undergone all the requirements to follow the Síolta framework for quality childhood. It means they have high standards and understanding in relation to working with parents, children’s rights, legal, environmental and professional development requirements. The most important thing for Mary is how key workers interact with the children, but she said it is wrong that staff have to sign on for Christmas and Easter because of how the free pre-school year is funded.
“There’s no time being given for planning, you’re paid under the ECCE scheme for the few hours a day the children are with you, but not for a minute more. They’re looking for quality but they can’t have that unless people can sit down and discuss at the end of each day how children are progressing.”
In line with the framework of the Aistear curriculum, they talk about the particular interests of each child, to inform their learning plans for the next day. This forms part of the daily routine in Aghada, since before the ECCE system started in Jan 2010, and Ms Cotter said staff are paid more than the €10.50-an-hour industry average in recognition of this and their other work, which has also helped keep staff turnover low.
“It’s terrible that our staff have to sign on the dole for the summer. They can inspect a job all they like, but it should be by people who are qualified and understand early childhood development and education.
“We’re trying to raise the profile of the sector and the service, but it’s seen really as a part-time job for somebody who has somebody else in the home who works. People should be paid throughout the year, there aren’t any days for in-service training, or planning meetings, or to be here if we bring in outside speakers, which we do on a regular basis.
“We were very lucky from the very start to get training because we went after it, bringing up the level of quality. The only way to do it is to have staff who are happy in their work, who can undertake training, then you have quality, but there’s no consideration of that in the free pre-school year system.”
