The role teachers will play was one of the issues raised at 'Growing Children's Centres', which looked at the development of provision for 'a one-stop shop' for early education, childcare, health and family support in England.
During a question and answer session, Sure Start minister Catherine Ashton said qualified teachers would be attached to children's centres, but she did not provide details. She also said the decision on whether 'one-stop shop' support should be arranged over more than one site should be determined locally. 'You need to have a model that works for your community. What I'm looking for is a sense of joined-upness,' she added.
She said children's centres would offer a 'quality experience for our youngest children' with leadership and partnership critical to their success. But, she added, 'It only works if we've got public, private and voluntary sectors working together.'
Baroness Ashton also confirmed that small daycare providers would have the chance to get involved. 'There's room for everyone. It needs to be a diverse and local market place,' she said.
Dr Gillian Pugh, chief executive of Coram Family, spoke about setting up the Coram Community Campus in 1997, a model of integrated provision which saw a derelict site in London's King's Cross transformed into a service catering for 1,000 children and their parents and carers. She said bringing services together would be one of the largest challenges facing children's centres but warned that there was 'still a tension between quantity and quality'.
Dr Pugh added that major findings from the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) research project showed that quality of training was the key and that children in centres that had an educational input have better outcomes.
While teachers would play a major role in children's centres, Dr Pugh said, an integrated service meant that other objectives such as family support through multi-agency staff would come into play.
The conference was organised by the National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations and the Daycare Trust.
