Examination of Witness(Questions 100-106)
BARONESS ASHTON
OF UPHOLLAND
MONDAY 2 DECEMBER 2002
100. In every playgroup and nursery where I
live in Chesterfield in my constituency they say if they do not
get the money, and that is what you are saying, they have to show
the formal learning, they will say they are being forced now into
far too much formal learning instead of learning through play.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) When I have talked
to Ofsted and when I have talked to the Early Years Directors
there, they are very clear about the kind of learning they are
looking for which is not the formalised City & Guilds learning
that we might have thought of. When we talk about learning it
means different things to different people. I think sometimes
Ofsted gets a bad reputation, completely undeservedly, for thinking
about learning other than very creatively. When Ofsted inspectors
go into Early Learning Centres they are looking for the kind of
things I have just described in the Early Learning goals, they
are not looking for children sitting down quietly in a row looking
at a blackboard because that would not in their view, I am quite
sure, represent the kind of learning experience that we would
want.
Ms Munn
101. Briefly coming back to Sure Start, I thought
it was very helpful that you talked about the Sure Start model
but then later you talked about buildings here and buildings there.
In Sheffield you know how hilly it is there, Gleadless Valley
has a Sure Start project, what they wanted to do was to add on
that approach into existing buildings. If you live at one end
of the valley you are as sure as hell not going to walk down and
back up to somewhere else but we are being told "No, there
must be some sort of building which is identified as the Sure
Start building". Now what is your view of that in terms of
the best way of moving the Sure Start approach forward?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) One of
the things that I hope comes through in the Childcare Review,
which is very much in need, is about the better use of the existing
infrastructure. If we want all these programmes to survive then
we have to make sure that we use that infrastructure better, which
is why I focus a lot on schools and nursery schools and community
centres. For me, if we can find a way of adding on services to
existing services so they become integrated, that is what we should
do.
Valerie Davey
102. This could start another two hours, but
I will not let it. I realise that you are responsible under Charles
Clarke for RE, and as a former RE teacher the debate about faith
schools has gone on long and loud. What do you call the other
schools that are "the others"? In other words, we have
faith schools and?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) Community
schools.
Valerie Davey: My concern is that they never
get called non-faith schools because clearly we have an RE syllabus
within all our schools and, therefore, that is interesting. I
think some of the faith schools also want to be called community
schools.
Chairman: A good question and a good answer.
Mr Pollard
103. What steps are you taking to identify at
an early age those children with a vocational inclination? I am
thinking particularly of young plumbers.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) There
is always a plumbers' question everywhere I go.
Mr Pollard: Absolutely.
Chairman
104. Is it always from the same man though?
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) No.
Chairman: It is always from the same man on
this Committee.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) It is a St Albans'
question. I have got a great plumber. In the House of Lords it
is always the Liberal Democratics who ask me about our skills,
he is absolutely right, it is a very, very important subject.
Within the Early Years work that I am responsible for we have
not set out specifically to identify vocational aspirations of
children. As I say, we do have water play. Our concern is to make
sure that any child who has a vocation in anything, particularly
in some of our schools I think especially in engineering, should
be encouraged to pursue those.
105. I think we all owe a debt of gratitude
to Bob the Builder. This has been a very good session.
The only slight note and I say a slight note of concern that I
am getting is a slight feeling of complacency—and I say
slight—which is only about here we have system still fragmented,
still we rely on people who are desperately poorly paid to look
after so many Early Years of children and the joined-upness of
the Government's policy on the one hand is trying to encourage,
as you say, the real route between getting out of poverty and
everything else and getting a job and women getting jobs. Most
women still have this tremendous barrier of affordable childcare,
and even when it is affordable they are leaving their children
often with people paid the minimum wage and even less. That is
the real challenge, is it not, for the next year of your tenure,
God willing.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) You are right. I am
anything but complacent in how I feel. I am only smiling because
I am relaxing slightly in your presence.
106. You know it is half past five.
(Baroness Ashton of Upholland) I do not know what
time it is, I have long since stopped looking. My ambition is
that any family with children can see before them the kind of
childcare they will need from nought to 14 in their community,
a lot of which they will be paying for themselves. This is a partnership
between families and public, private and the voluntary sector,
but it is available because for many women they have to be risk
averse in their careers because they simply do not know what will
happen if the childcare evaporates or is not there. That is what
I want. I recognise to do that we have got to have a fantastic
workforce and offer them more. I do not necessarily believe I
can solve the issues of pay, what I do believe is if I look at
my childminder who has an average childminding life span of seven
years, I may have a teacher of the future, I may have a nursery
manager, I may have an engineer, and what we have got to offer
to people who come into this industry in the best sense of that
word, is the opportunity to develop and grow their qualifications.
I launched the foundation degree in Hertfordshire a week last
Monday. A group of women, maybe with one man on the course, who
had never contemplated that they could do a degree, and that is
something they can afterwards. So far from complacency, this is
the biggest challenge, but I want to produce something that will
survive long beyond us. I want to live with a structure which
will survive long beyond us which we can point to as part of this
Parliament and say "We started that here. We have a proper
integrated support for families which supports our children and
their mums and dads to enable them to do what they want".
Chairman: That is a great and optimistic
aspiration and a good note on which to end. Thank you, Minister,
we have enjoyed the session.
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