The new Ofsted guidance on national standards for under-eights daycare and childminding in England must surely be the most bizarre set of documents that organisation has yet produced.
It is hard to believe that civil servants and expert advisors could actually bring themselves to write official guidance that manages to be pompous, mealy-mouthed, barbaric, comical and chilling in turn. The already notorious smacking and smoking advice for childminders will surely destroy any last shreds of respectability that Ofsted regulation of childcare had left. And the Early Years Directorate hasn't officially started yet!
I can see no subtle deterrent to smacking in the suggested 'written agreement' with parents. It is usually the case that written agreements carry pseudo-official status and get implemented, resulting, in this instance, in very young children being assaulted.
I was much taken by the Monty Python-type scenario of childminders carefully debating the linguistics and semantics of what constitutes a smack. But I was chilled by the bureaucratic decisions on where to smack a child - through clothing or on the bare skin?
Ofsted's smoking advice is equally appalling in its juxtaposition of medical warnings about the dangers of passive smoking with 'mumsy' advice to wash the ashtrays, don't smoke in bed, and to ensure cigarette ends and matches are disposed of carefully. In contrast, the advice on staff qualifications in group settings delegates far too much responsibility and detailed decision-making to supervisors whose role is ill-defined and whose level 3 qualification is totally inadequate.
We cannot leave the care of young children in the hands of unsupported and minimally educated workers. Neither can we accept simplistic and economically convenient claims that graduate courses don't make us better carers and educators.
These guidance documents must be rewritten before they fall into the hands of early childhood educarers round the world - and shame us all.
