Research into childcare consistently comes up with three influences on quality, says Dr Tony Munton
The Government's National Childcare Strategy has prompted a rapid expansion in childcare and is certainly making people think about how we provide daycare for young children. Nurseries will be at the heart of any future growth, and to ensure that children and parents receive a high quality service, nursery practices need to be based firmly on evidence of what works best.
That is harder than it appears. Gathering and interpreting evidence about quality in childcare is notoriously difficult (see box). However, the vast amount of research carried out both in the UK and abroad does enable us to make some general conclusions. First, that the quality of a child's experiences can be vitally important to development. Second, that three elements can have a major effect on the quality of care nurseries provide:
- staff qualifications
- adult: child ratios
- group size.
Because so much research has come to the same conclusion, experts refer to these three elements as the iron triangle of evidence about quality.
So, what does this mean for Government policy, particularly given the growing opposition to having four-year-old children in reception classes, where ratios are 2:26, when other early years settings operate on ratios of 1:8?
With the iron triangle, it is important to note that these three keys to quality - qualifications, ratios and group size - do not work alone. The effects of changing adult: child ratios will vary depending on how well qualified the staff are.
In the case of reception classes, research suggests that since teachers in reception classes are generally more highly qualified than staff in day nurseries, children could actually be better off despite the difference in ratios.
That is certainly the principle adopted in many other countries. In the French ecoles maternelles, for example, children from the age of two-and-a-half are taught in groups with adult: child ratios of 1:28, but the carers are highly qualified teachers.
Very few people would argue against the value of having well-trained staff. Three key points emerge from the international research:
- specialised training, after secondary school, is more likely to be a better preparation for childcare staff than training at the vocational or school level;
- staff working with infants or school-aged children can benefit from specific training related to these age groups;
- the best training for staff working with pre-school children may be a degree or specialised childcare course.
Adult: child ratios and group size both have an effect on how well adults are able to respond to children. The more children adults have to look after, the more skilled they need to be in responding to their individual needs.
The same goes for group size. Having one adult with a group of eight children is not the same as having three adults looking after a group of 24. The ratio of adults: children is the same (1:8), but the effects for some of the less able or quieter children can be very different.
Evidence shows that when all staff have similar qualifications, children in nurseries with lower ratios and smaller groups do better on language development, are less aimless and aggressive, and develop better social skills. As one of the researchers on the CQO study team looking at toddlers in nurseries put it, 'Ratio predicted the quality of the caregiver-child interaction. Only when caregivers were not stressed by being responsible for large numbers of children were they able to provide valuable social interactions' (see box).
However, as mentioned, staff with better training and qualifications are often better at managing larger groups of children.
Ratios are just one of the many issues likely to be tackled by the new standards for inspections of early years provision. Research evidence suggests that quality could be impro-ved by looking at the issue of staff qualifications directly. The current recommendation in the guidance accompanying the 1989 Children Act suggests that at least half of staff in group daycare settings should be appropriately qualified. Put another way, it is deemed adequate if half of the staff are not qualified.
Revising this 50 per cent recommendation upwards could make a real difference. Different recommendations could be applied to different staff grades, such as managers or officers in charge, senior staff, and care staff. For example, recommendations might suggest that all managers, around 75 per cent of senior staff and 50 per cent of junior staff have relevant qualifications.
The changes could be introduced gradually, over two, three or even more years.
Whatever the proposed changes may be, the new standards could be a great opportunity to address the qualifications issue.
We now have quite an impressive collection of evidence about how we might improve standards and how the three factors within the iron triangle work together to influence quality.
As the National Childcare Strategy starts to have an effect, research must continue to play a role in helping us uncover examples of good practice. We cannot rely on international research to do that for us.
Funding needs to be found for long-term projects, like the NICHD and CQO studies, to be done in the UK. A start has been made. For example, the DfEE are funding the EPPE (Effective Provision of Pre-School Education) study. Professor Kathy Sylva and her team from the University of Oxford, the Institute of Education and the University of Cardiff are tracking 3,000 children from 141 different centres across five regions in England. The children are being followed from the age of three when they enter pre-school, to the age of seven. The project is due to produce a final report in 2003.
Research is vital in helping us to discover what works best for children. Perhaps, the time has come for a National Centre of Excellence in Childcare Research. Whatever happens, we must make sure that both childcare policy and practice continue to be informed by good-quality research.
