Examination of witness (Questions 40 -
53)
WEDNESDAY 29 MARCH 2000
MS M LOCHRIE
40. I do not think any of the maintained sector,
certainly in my area, would accept that parents are not welcome
in their provision. If we move down this route of much higher
qualifications, and you quoted the example of France where the
same things are required in the mutual sector as are required
of the maintained sector, do you not think that will fundamentally
change what happens in pre-schools? If governments address the
standards they require of pre-school provision when they are investing
in them, then pre-schools will be required and should be required
to meet those standards both in terms of staff qualifications
and in terms of learning outcomes.
(Ms Lochrie) I am not sure how to answer beyond what
I have already said. Pre-schools are already obliged to meet quite
exacting standards. They are obliged on the one hand to meet the
standards of the Children Act, which maintain provision, and those
which are registered for funded nursery education are now required
to meet OFSTED standards. Unless we are saying that those standards
are completely negligible, then one must accept that they are
already delivering part of what you are looking for and they are
able to do that in a way which is consistent with parental involvement;
indeed an involvement of parents, knowledgeable active parents,
can contribute to the development of standards, it is not a barrier
to standards.
41. I am not suggesting that it is. I am asking
you whether you think that in the long term Pre-school Learning
Alliance and other voluntary organisations will have to meet the
same levels of staffing and qualifications as are required of
the maintained sector.
(Ms Lochrie) In the long run, yes, there will be a
convergence and that would be desirable. Convergence in terms
of qualifications and there would have to be a convergence in
terms of funding. I have to say that I think the threat to the
survival of pre-schools is much more immediate in the here and
now than the one you are posing to me. If 3,500 pre-schools close
in the next year, added to the 2,000 which have closed, then there
is a very real prospect that there will not be voluntary pre-schools
and playgroups at the point you pictured along the line when that
might become an issue.
Valerie Davey: Could I change the focus back
again now from the staffing to children and bring in Mr Foster
Mr Foster
42. One of the questions which is key to what
this Committee is looking at is the age at which you start formal
schooling. You have mentioned it already this morning but in your
written evidence you say "Young four-year-olds in particular
are most likely to be intimidated by an earlier start to their
schooling and may experience actual distress". What sort
of evidence do you have to confirm and put forward that statement?
(Ms Lochrie) There are two sorts of evidence. Probably
the best known evidence is research from the National Foundation
for Educational Research which has published more than one study
and referred to other research in which the view of Caroline Sharp,
who is the main researcher in this area, is that there is no compelling
rationale for children starting school at four. There is abundant
research from other countries which indicates that a later start
is not a disadvantage, indeed children from other countries who
start later seem to do better than children here. The other source
of evidence is simply anecdotal evidence supplied by parents to
my organisation and to other organisations. I want to make it
clear that we are never talking about all children of a certain
age group. There is a danger of making sweeping generalisations
of any kind. Children have different developmental curves and
some children will be able to cope comfortably with an early start
and others will not. One of the additional points we made in our
evidence was our great concerns with the most valuable children,
the children who are already suffering from some form of developmental,
delay of communication difficulties. We should be concerned about
those children having too early a start to school.
43. May I push you a little further? On that
basis then you would presumably have said the same about young
five-year-olds, that they were also going to be more likely to
suffer intimidation and experience actual distress? Would you
say that as well?
(Ms Lochrie) I would not make the case on behalf of
five-year-olds because I think it is self evident that in any
population there will be vulnerable five-year-olds, vulnerable
six-year-olds and children all the way through school who are
vulnerable and intimidated by other children. In our evidence
we were simply adducing independent research around the position
of summer-born four-year-olds; it is not simply my organisation's
view. It is for the Government and for schools to generate evidence
to support an early entry to school bearing in mind that the compulsory
age for starting school in this country is five.
44. So the independent evidence will give us
examples of real actual distress of four-year-olds who were studied
and it is not just the anecdotal evidence from parents which will
describe the actual distress. Am I right in working that out?
(Ms Lochrie) Independent research will not detail
case studies of children suffering actual distress, it is not
the nature of that. If the Committee would like some case studies
then we could certainly supply them.
Mr Foster: That would be most useful.
Valerie Davey: If you have other evidence you
wish to put forward, then by all means do.
Mr Foster
45. One last question on age of starting school.
What particular difficulties do you see for summer-born children
of having an early start to their school career?
(Ms Lochrie) Some of the children going to school
will be just four. It is theoretically possible for a child who
is four on 31 August to start school the following term. Sometimes,
not always, those children may not have all of the social and
practical skills that some of their peers will have in terms of
the confidence and ability to go to the toilet by themselves,
to dress themselves properly. Some will not have those. Some of
them will not have some of the foundation skills that the Government
is striving to ensure are in place before formal schooling starts
in terms of an understanding and confidence about the fact that
words carry meaning and reading from left to right across a page.
Some of those children will have under-developed language skills
which will make it difficult for them to cope and some of them
will simply find the transition from a small intimate nursery,
whether that is in the maintained sector or the voluntary sector,
to the playground intimidating as you have already mentioned.
The main academic research relates to the fact that summer-born
children seem to do worse in the school than their older peers.
Caroline Sharp has done this research and has talked about nursery
education generating resilience in children; maybe they lack some
of the resilience of their older friends at that age.
46. Does this impact of children not doing as
well at school go right the way through their school career?
(Ms Lochrie) I understand that the effects are seen
to persist through primary schooling but I do not want to move
into an area which is properly something which should be addressed
to the authors of the research.
Valerie Davey
47. Can we move onto the integrated approach
which the Government is clearly seeking to achieve through the
children's partnership, young children's partnership and Sure
Start so that we have from education, from health, from community
development a more integrated approach to the benefits of families
and young children? How do you value that approach by Government?
(Ms Lochrie) It is a very, very sensible approach.
Since children's needs are not separated into care and education
it is very sensible and Sure Start is a very valuable initiative.
48. How do you see the Alliance's contribution
into that wider spectrum of support for children?
(Ms Lochrie) We are and would expect to play a part
in Sure Start projects. Although we do not have precise information
as yet, we are involved; in at least half of the Sure Start projects
pre-schools are involved. That is not surprising because the principles
and philosophy which underlie Sure Start are very close to the
pre-school model. The idea of not isolating education for young
children from support and involvement and education for the parents
is a defining characteristic of pre-schools and the Sure Start
initiative is a very welcome one bearing in mind that it will
operate at the margin. Our argument would be that there is a case
for opening up all the early year services. Why treat nursery
education as something which takes place in isolation? That integrated
process could be developed further. Why are there separate funding
streams for early education and child care? Why not bring them
together? Why not encourage the development of family learning
opportunities and support for parents alongside every nursery
class as well as every pre-school?
Valerie Davey: This really comes back to Helen
Jones's point about the concern for parents, how they are then
involved and integrated into this wider network, either through
your pre-school groups or in any other way and whether you see
therefore a changing role for parents.
Helen Jones
49. It seemed to me that in your evidence you
are setting up what my colleague Gordon Marsden calls a straw
man between the increasing qualifications of staff and the involvement
of parents. What the Committee would be interested in is your
ideas on how parental involvement will develop as we improve the
qualifications of staff and bearing in mind that the world is
now changing and that many mothers of young children work full
time.
(Ms Lochrie) I should like to see, my organisation
would like to see, more active support and investment in programmes
for parents alongside provision for children, whether it is in
the voluntary sector or in the private or maintained sector. It
is very difficult to get core funding to do education with parents
alongside. Parental involvement is not something which just happens
because you wish for it. Parents have to be involved for a time
before they will take up those opportunities. There has to be
support and encouragement from it. I would say that it is relevant
to parents today. Yes, more mothers are going back to work and
there is a separate case for expanding child care. I do not think
anyone would disagree with that proposition, but the majority
of parents with children under five still work part time if they
work at all. The other problems which parents experience are growing
rather than diminishing, whether that is some form of severe or
mild post-natal depression or whether it is simple isolation.
The number of women in particular but parents bringing up families
on their own, as the Committee will know, is increasing. The growth
of poverty and social exclusion, all of these suggest to me and
to my organisation that the need to support parents in their task
is growing rather than diminishing in any way. Indirectly, through
providing that kind of support to parents and the opportunity
for them to return to some form of education, we are also increasing
through added value the benefits for their own children. We work
with parents, some of them barely more than children themselves,
who are going up the wall in small flats with children and who
need that kind of mentoring and support. Those needs are as great
if not greater than the simple need for child care so that parents
can work, although that is a very real need.
50. I think you misunderstood my point. I did
not say that there was not a need to involve parents when they
were working. My question was on how you would do it. It is interesting
that you said the majority of parents of young children work part
time. That is actually the majority of mothers. So my question
then goes on from that. How do you involve the fathers?
(Ms Lochrie) That question came up in your previous
session and the relatively low level of involvement of fathers
in early years provision is something which is quite widespread.
They do have examples where the fathers are involved and sometimes
that is very important for in some provision the father who is
involved may be the only male resource for a lot of the children
in that provision because they do not have fathers of their own.
There are also, as I am sure you are aware, barriers of prejudice
across the spread of under-five provision, sometimes on the part
of mothers, against fathers being involved because of anxieties
about child protection. There are examples but this kind of involvement
needs to be sustained. It could be developed further where there
was a policy framework which was more actively encouraging, which
rewarded provision strategically for developing services for parents.
There is a range of exemplars, the early excellence centres and
maintained sector provide exemplars in this area and we believe
we have many exemplars of where you can involve parents in a constructive
way. One further brief point, and we make this point in our written
evidence, is if this is of interest then this is something which
should be evaluated. There has been very little evaluation by
Government of this dimension of the work of early years provision.
Valerie Davey: It is something which is of interest
to us.
Charlotte Atkins
51. Many of the playgroups operate on a sessional
or a part-time basis. Would you see one future development as
broadening those out to longer sessions? What are the challenges
basically which that would give you as an organisation?
(Ms Lochrie) In reply to your first question, yes,
we should like to see that, more of them open all day, not necessarily
so that all children would attend all day. It might simply be
that they could provide more sessional care for a larger number
of children or more support services for families, drop-in facilities
and so on. I am sorry if it goes back to questions of sustainability
but the challenges are around guaranteeing some stability for
the voluntary sector. There are clear indications—we did
some research ourselves on this last year—that the majority
of pre-school leaders and parents and committees of pre-schools
are interested in expansion of some form or another. The study
we did showed that 80 per cent of those responding were willing
to expand in some way. If you are worried whether you are going
to have enough children to survive through to Christmas at the
start of the autumn term it is not the best climate in which to
consider expansion. There are some obvious things where a group
is committed to expansion, some capital if you are going to cater
for younger children for the nursery equipment. Another barrier
for pre-schools is the kind of premises they are in. The majority
of them are in community premises and although that carries a
number of advantages it can be a disadvantage if you want to double
up the number of sessions, if there are other users and the hall
is not available. There is a clear will on the part of those involved
in pre-schools to change and that is the hallmark of the pre-school
movement: the capacity to change over the years.
52. In that case how do you see the pre-school
learning organisations and the Alliance and the pre-schools themselves
developing over the next five years?
(Ms Lochrie) Before that question can be properly
answered there has to be a question mark over the long-term survival
of pre-schools. This is not simply my view. The Committee has
had a copy of Tomorrow's Children. That was the consensus of the
panel. The problems of pre-schools closing were systemic problems
which needed to be addressed. The Government has to consider whether
it will implement those recommendations in the review which were
addressed to Government and the other parties to that. Some of
the recommendations were to bodies like mine and we are trying
to respond to them by providing more courses of support on things
like expanding hours, developing family services, business planning.
We are not standing on the sidelines just watching this happen.
Some of the partnerships are now responding to recommendations
in Tomorrow's Children.
53. What are the key recommendations which you
think need to be taken up?
(Ms Lochrie) As far as Government is concerned it
is some of the funding recommendations, to look at the kind of
economic drivers for increased competition, because there is still
competition. I was talking to a nursery teacher in Nottingham
last week who said to me, "We don't want to take three-year-olds.
We know it will close down the local playgroup but we have no
option because it boils down to budget". One of the recommendations
of the review was that schools should be funded on the basis that
there was no perverse incentive for them to take children in earlier.
It is a perfectly sensible recommendation that reception classes
in particular should have some form of resource which would guarantee
the funding across the school year. We received evidence in the
review from Norfolk who have done that and that has guaranteed
the survival of more groups in the voluntary sector. We should
look at a funding methodology which does not simply double funds,
but which says here is some core element, in addition let us create
incentives to perform, to increase qualifications, to provide
expanded day care, to provide more service for families, but let
us try to conserve what is there on the ground.
Valerie Davey: Thank you very much indeed. May
I say thank you not only for your contribution to the Committee
today but for what you have previously sent and what I know in
future you are planning to send us. Thank you very much indeed.
May I just mention that the Committee is in fact having a concentrated
effort next week on early years as well? On 4 April, next Tuesday,
we are visiting a variety of provision within Oxfordshire. On
the Wednesday we have Wendy Scott coming from the British Association
of Early Childhood Education, David and Clare Mills, who are from
Channel Four and as well—we have a very busy morning that
morning—Professor Lesley Abbott and Dr Hilary Fabian from
Manchester Metropolitan University. It is going to be further
evidence and further experience for the Committee on what all
of us appreciate, and I know all of you here do, is a very important
aspect of education now and for the future. Thank you very much
indeed.
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