Childcare providers looking for a quality assurance scheme should recall the warning on a shop front in the ruins of Pompeii: caveat emptor - 'buyer beware'.
The advice comes from Janine Collishaw, the proprietor of two nurseries in Wiltshire, who has just completed an MBA at Reading University for which she conducted a research project on childcare quality assurance schemes.
She is now planning to write a doctoral thesis on the impact that doing a QA scheme has on practice.
Picking a programme from the more than 60 schemes available has become easier with the launch of the Investors in Children (IiC) award. Previously there were no common standards, so potential buyers faced the prospect of expending considerable effort and several hundred pounds, with little guidance on the merits of the programmes. Now, IiC assesses schemes against criteria, agreed with the sector, providing a benchmark.
The criteria cover issues such as requiring QA programmes to build on the national standards, address management practices, recognise the value of diversity, be based on research evidence, cover peer observation of adult-child interactions and support self-reflective practice.
Initially, 47 schemes applied for IiC accreditation and 24 are due to be fully endorsed this autumn. The award panel meets again in January, but it is unclear how many of those which did not originally apply will seek approval alongside the 23 held over this summer.
'I found it a very positive experience and would encourage any nursery to go for it,' says Janine. 'It is not so daunting; in fact it is quite a bonding experience. Just make sure you buy the right product for you (see box).
'My conclusion is that there is an amazingly broad range. Until IiC there has been no template, no standard by which QAs have set themselves.
Therefore you get different quality assurance schemes with different philosophies, looking for different things. Some schemes give headings and areas on which they are going to asses you but do not say what the key standard is, while others set out the standards.'
Her Stepping Stones nursery in Cirencester followed the the Quality Matters scheme operated by CfBT. 'The whole purpose of doing a QA scheme is to look at what you do and be critical about it and see if there is any way you could improve it,' says Janine. 'The QA scheme will ask you, on the paperwork side, "Do you have all this administrative paperwork in place?"
This is very helpful. If you look at the recent problems Jigsaw had over an allergy policy, how many nurseries don't actually have an allergy policy?
'People are complacent if they think, "We are doing it all right." Someone once said the most dangerous thing for a business to do was to stand still.
Quality assurance is a catalyst. It encourages every person in a nursery to look at what they do.'
Schemes are run by early years partnerships, organisations such as CfBT and professional associations (see box). Local partnerships fund schemes wholly, in part, or not at all, says Sue Griffin, national training and quality assurance manager at the National Childminding Association. 'In some areas partnerships are not funding, or are only funding their own local scheme, but some partnerships are very enthusiastic and are supporting our Quality First scheme. One has bought NCMA membership for the childminders taking part in Quality First, and in another area the partnership provided the childminders with all the stationery they needed to do the scheme.'
Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, says, 'In some areas, nurseries have done the NDNA scheme and are having to do the local one too because their partnership only includes details of its QA schemeholders on publicity leaflets for parents. IiC accreditation should stop that.'
