Maintaining high standards of care and education against a backdrop of severe staff shortages, inadequate funding rates, changes to ratio requirements and lack of confidence in Ofsted has been one of the biggest challenges facing nursery providers in the past decade. High levels of experienced and qualified staff are leaving the profession, which Ofsted warns could have a ‘detrimental effect on quality in the future’.
Ofsted data published in November shows the number of nurseries has fallen from 22,691 to 22,538, resulting in a loss of 1,682 early years places.
‘Recruitment, onboarding, upskilling and engagement is a big focus which we have to manage,’ explains Sarah Mackenzie, CEO of Storal. ‘Some qualified team members are not joining us with that full understanding of child development,’ she adds.
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