HIRING THE DISABLED
It was exciting to read about Little Hippos Nursery in Birmingham gaining the Positive About Disabled People kitemark (Management Focus, 12 August). I am a senior staff member and third in charge in a nursery. I am deaf and, over the 12 years I have been in childcare, I have faced a lot of discrimination. Thankfully, my current employers are not bothered about it, placing a text-rely phone for me to be able to communicate with others.
I am very good with the parents, children and staff face to face because I lip-read. I just can't hear on the phone, as it is too low. I would love to go into a management position, but when employers find out that I can't hear on a normal phone, it freaks them out a bit.
I believe that every nursery needs to be able to implement this 'Positive About Disability'. It's OK doing the training, but it is a lot different to actually having a disabled person working with you. How would the staff, parents and children react?
I am very lucky to have parents, children and staff who understand my disability, but it has taken a while. I run a successful baby room as its leader. I can run the room effectively and supervise staff. But my own concern is how I move on from there into a management position with other employers.
It was a brilliant article, and I hope other nurseries will follow suit. Well done on the Job Centre Plus as well, for teaming up with them.
- Candice Lee-Thomas, by e-mail
Our letter of the week wins £30-worth of books
WHY NOT TO TOP UP
The commitment of the Early Years Childcare nursery chain to providing high-quality childcare is commendable (News, 26 August). Unfortunately, the argument that nurseries should be allowed to charge parents top-up fees to offset running costs is dangerously misguided. Charging parents would inevitably hit the poorest families hardest, meaning that those who need free entitlement the most will be the first to miss out.
4Children is successfully running high-quality childcare provision, and so we sympathise with the financial pressures. But campaigns for additional funding should target local or central government and not undermine the principle of free nursery places which are vital for vulnerable families who are already struggling to make ends meet.
- Anne Longfield OBE, chief executive, 4Children
FREE UP THE FUNDING
I am concerned about the Government's decision to press ahead with both the Code of Practice and Single Funding Formula, because neither has been costed properly.
The previous Government claimed that there was sufficient money already within the system to fund both the changes brought about by the new Code of Practice and the changes that will be created by all the different SFFs that come into force in April 2011. This new Government has already found out that there was a black hole in the Labour Party's finances for dealing with the financial downturn. I'm surprised that they now seem to accept that their figures on early years are correct.
Like many other daycare nurseries, I am getting to the point where I can no longer subsidise these 'free' places. For my nursery to continue to offer the free entitlement I need to make a choice between lowering my quality and services I provide or increasing the cost of the hours that parents require over and above the free entitlement (which is another way of topping-up).
I believe it would be far more honest if the Government scrapped the ban on topping up. Let each local authority set the amount of funding they are allocating to provide the free entitlement. Then allow parents to use that money to purchase early years care and education from any of the different types of providers in the market place. This will included the maintained, charitable and voluntary as well as private day nurseries and childminders. Parents then would have the opportunity to choose the type of setting they would like. Some will choose settings that are entirely free, while others may choose to pay a little extra for a place in a setting that they believe offers them and their child services and a quality that they wish.
- Ken McArthur, nursery owner, Polly Anna's Nursery, Haxby, York
Send your letters to ... The Editor, Nursery World, 174 Hammersmith Road, London W6 7JP, letter.nw@haymarket.com, 020 8267 8401.
