Friday 18 July was the closing date for the Sure Start consultation looking at improving the regulation of childcare in England. We wonder how many Nursery World readers saw this document, as it does not appear to have been widely circulated even though it covers such important and controversial issues as banning corporal punishment by childminders and no longer allowing them to smoke in the presence of minded children - changes so many of us have wanted to see for a long time.
However, there also appears to be a shift in approach in the document that we fear may lead to a lowering of care standards. For instance, we are asked if we agree that the criteria for different categories of childcare should be applied flexibly. An example is given that a setting operating for half an hour longer than the sessional care limit should not necessarily be treated as full daycare.
The Playgroup Network cannot see the point of applying a time limit for sessional care and then not sticking to it. We are also concerned that the consultation asks if we agree with the proposal to exclude from the registration requirements any educational provision for children aged three (including rising-threes) and four for up to six hours between 8am and 4pm.
The opportunity for a clearer definition of sessional care has also been missed. It should surely be the length of time a child is allowed to attend that determines the category of provision, not the staffing and operational arrangements of the provider. No child should attend sessional care for longer than four hours, but this should not mean that a playgroup has to shut up shop between sessions. Like many of the changes, we were not asked to comment on this.
We found it frustrating that the questions we were supposed to answer did not cover all the proposed changes, some of which are particularly relevant to playgroups. We ended up filling in an extra page of comments that we only hope are not ignored by someone feeding the standard responses into a computer.
