Editor’s view - Early years critical – no surprise!

Apparently, the early years are a critical time for the brain to develop key skills, and ‘we’ve got to challenge the misconception that learning can wait for school’! Well, who would have thought it? It feels as though we’ve all been pushing this message for several decades. Do these findings really come as news to anyone?

Well, certainly not to anyone who works with young children. The report’s message may be more pertinent for parents, however, as a separate poll found that the majority did not realise how important a child’s pre-school years were, saying that school was the most important time for learning.

‘Lighting Up Young Brains’ also calls for all nurseries to have a qualified early years teacher by 2020. Again, this has been on the agenda for many years, and a large number of early years settings do employ a graduate, many who have taken Early Years Professional Status or Early Years Teacher Status.

And here, of course, we come back to funding once more. With the graduate leader fund long gone, the rate for the current free entitlement frozen for most, and concerns about the likely level of the 30 hours rate, increasing or even maintaining the employment of graduates will be difficult.

The lack of a proper career path and relatively poor pay and conditions mean that EYTS courses struggle to recruit and QTS is a more attractive option. Early years gets stuck in the same old loop, and the Workforce Strategy will need to try to break the cycle.