Report RE: Need to get this off my chest

Original Post

by: Millie

Hi timmylums

You make some very valid points.  I do feel for practitioners receiving low pay (I still work in a Nursery twice a week!), I too am one of these and you maybe yourself, even though you have those fantastic qualifications.

It is not that I have little faith in the level 3 qualified personnel, but as an assessor I visit on a daily basis several settings within Surrey and London areas and as highlighted have really grave concerns.  One of them you mention as being there just to make up numbers, I whole heartidly agree! - One setting has told me that they want to put through candidates who do not undertake a supervisory role, but just want to undertake the qualification.  Trying to explain that the candidates being put forward for the qualification must have at least 6 months minimim experience in leading a team, room and must be competent and confident etc., has met with a lot of disatisfaction.  But the qualification warrants a person who will be capable of undertaking leadership within the room, to include knowledge of planning, obs, assessment to ultimately ensure best practice for the children in their care.

All of us could refuse to undertake extra training, but at the end of the day most of us in the job love working with children and want the best for them, this means ensuring that we constantly seek to improve our knowledge.  The only way also to earn extra money later on is to become more qualified.  This will not happen in the near future, but gradually, a few graduate/EYPS jobs are now filtering through, as seen in Nursery world vacancies.  I know it is not fast enough for those of us who are committed childcare practitioners, but all change happens slowly.

I would like to point out that many candidates undertaking level 3 do struggle undertaking this level.  This is due to the lack of in-house training that should be taking place in their settings.  In my experience they struggle on basic communication with the children (not using appropriate or adequate "Open ended questioning", behaviour management (explaining rules and boundaries - I often hear "No dont do that" - rather than an explanation of setting rules and personal social and emotional aspects), Observations - absolute nightmare, but more importantly a lack of understanding in how to plan to enhance further development.

Worksheets are still being produced for the under 5's which are totally inapropriate for this age group.

With all said and done, we have some fantastic level 3 practitioners out there that are like minded in respect of constantly wanting to improve their practice for the benefit of the children. 

My main issue and the main point of the reply is that I have a fear that the Train to Gain initiative will now not produce what the government and the CWDC think it will - fully qualified level 3 personnel within settings.  The funding for training companies are withdrawn at certain intervals for each candidate, so pressure is on the assessor to get them through.  Rarely do training centres now provide good workshops to provide underpinning knowledge such as observation techniques, child development, risk assessment -etc.,  I know for sure that settings do not teach this as they do not have the time, inclination or funding! - So where are these candidates supposed to learn this knowledge?  The assessors can set learning aims, but we are not allowed to train the candidates.  I can speak for myself and my many colleagues who operate at different training centres that we all share the same concerns now and are worried that the government have not taken our concerns on board. - And yes we have put these questions back on them, they reply that it is up to Management to train their staff! - Its not happening in a majority of settings - and I do not say all as not everyone will be the same - this also applies to some level 3 qualified personnel - such as myself, but I did the EYCE and had to thoroughly research my underpinning knowledge!

Report Comment