THE RESPONSE OF THE NATIONAL UNION
OF TEACHERS TO THE DfE CONSULTATION
ON TEACHERS’ STANDARDS (EARLY
YEARS)
APRIL 2013
INTRODUCTION
1. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) welcomes the opportunity to respond
to the DfE consultation on the Teachers Standards (Early Years).
2. The consultation does not seek views on the concept of Early Years
Teachers, which is a crucial oversight. The introduction to the consultation
document refers extremely selectively to the findings of both the Nutbrown
Review and independent research evidence, such as the Effective Provision
of Pre-School Education (EPPE) project, to justify the creation of this new
status. In both cases, it is provision led by those with qualified teacher status,
rather than graduate status or any other graduate-level qualification, which
has been found to have the greatest impact on the quality of early years
provision and young children’s learning and developmental outcomes.
3. Indeed, this finding led to the recommendation by Nutbrown that a new birth
to five or birth to seven initial teacher training course should be introduced as
a matter of urgency, an issue on which the NUT has campaigned consistently
since the launch of the free entitlement for three year olds. It is only by
employing qualified teachers that the quality of early years education can be
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guaranteed. EPPE1 found, for example, that qualified teachers had the most
positive impact on the learning of the most disadvantaged children.
4. The Government’s proposals appear to intend to deceive parents and the
wider public. By calling the new role “teacher” rather than continuing to use
the established Early Years Professional (EYP) designation, parents will
naturally assume that this section of the workforce are as well-trained and
qualified as teachers currently working in nursery schools and classes, as well
as in other settings and in the primary and secondary sectors.
5. This concern is generated by the consultation document’s proposal that EYPs
“will be recognised as the equivalent of Early Years Teachers”. If existing
EYPs would automatically become Early Years Teachers, where is the
evidence to show that every EYP would meet all of the standards? Some of
these would be very much dependent on the setting(s) in which the EYP
worked. An EYP working with nought to two year olds, for example, is unlikely
to have either experience or understanding of standards 3.4 and 3.5.
6. The proposals also raise a number of practical concerns relating to qualified
teachers currently working in early years provision. For instance, would ‘early
years teachers’ be able to work in primary schools? How would the ratios
work if a qualified teacher was in charge of a class or setting – would he or
she also have to gain “early years teacher” status?
7. Serving EYPs will receive no additional training, yet will suddenly become
“teachers”. This is clearly not about “raising the status of the profession”, as
the consultation document claims, as parents value the different constituents
which make up the early years workforce as long as they deliver a high quality
service. It appears that the Government wishes to continue its denigration of
qualified teacher status, pursued through its policy of allowing academies and
free schools to employ unqualified teachers, by now extending this approach
to the whole early years sector. This is obviously one area where the
1
http://eppe.ioe.ac.uk/eppe/eppepubs.htm
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Government does not believe comparisons with the highest performing
education jurisdictions need apply.
8. What this proposal will achieve is that graduates working in the early years
who do not hold QTS can be employed on variable terms and conditions, in
some cases far below what a qualified teacher or a graduate working at a
similar level of responsibility in another profession could expect to earn. The
reason why EYPs have not expanded and embedded to the extent expected
by the previous government is because of the very poor pay and conditions
on offer to them. These proposals will not address this fundamental problem.
9. No information is given in the consultation document about how new Early
Years Teachers would be trained and assessed. The document “More Great
Childcare” suggested that Early Years Teacher training would include the
QTS skills tests as an entry requirement and be pre-dominantly work-based.
That is not sufficient information on which to base a view about a new type of
training provision. For example, the NUT has expressed concerns previously
that no formal independent observation of EYPs’ interaction with children is
undertaken in order to confirm a successful award of EYP status, as is the
case for qualified teacher status.
10. It is also a matter of concern that Early Years Teachers training programmes
are due to start from September 2013, an extremely unrealistic timetable
given the need to develop quality programmes and quality assure those
settings which wish to offer Early Years Teacher training. There is a real
danger that, in the haste to establish the new status, the quality of the training,
and hence the experience of the trainee and the potential for them to acquire
the right skills, will suffer.
11. Notwithstanding its rejection of Early Years Teacher status, below are brief
comments on the draft standards.
Do the standards set appropriate expectations for what an Early Years Teacher
must demonstrate?
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11. The majority of the standards are appropriate expectations for someone who
would be responsible for young children’s education and care, although the
former aspect is given much greater emphasis than the latter. This should not
be an either/or situation, as the highest quality provision combines the two
seamlessly.
12. Standards 3.4 and 3.5 are inappropriate and should be removed or
significantly re-worded. As Early Years Teacher status covers the birth to five
age range, it is completely inappropriate that the formal teaching of early
reading
and
mathematics
should
be
given
so
much
prominence.
Understanding of the importance of reading to and with babies and young
children and preparation for learning to read and number work would be far
more useful requirements.
13. In addition, these two standards are based on the current Government’s
ideological position regarding systematic synthetic phonics and the “correct”
way of doing mathematics. They ignore the fact that synthetic phonics do not
work equally well for all children and, as the only required training provision,
would leave Early Years Teachers ill-equipped to deal with children for whom
the “official” pedagogy is not effective. It would be much better to include a
wider reference to “understanding of effective practices for the teaching of
reading, writing and mathematics” to replace the narrowly focused draft
standards.
Is there anything missing from the standards which you feel is vital for an
Early Years Teacher to demonstrate?
14. There is no reference to the development of early writing which is surprising
given the standard which specifically refers to reading. The standards should
also contain a reference to age-appropriate activities such as mark-making to
ensure that this aspect of early learning is given equal prominence in the
standards.
15. Section 3 of the standards would be strengthened by an explicit reference to
knowledge about Key Stage 1 curriculum, assessment and pedagogy.
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Although Early Years Teachers would not work exclusively with four and five
year olds, a set of standards for lead education practitioners need to have
such knowledge and understanding if they are to be able to support transition
to primary school and improve children’s learning outcomes both in the Early
Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1.
16. The most significant omission from the standards is knowledge about playbased learning, which is a key pedagogical tool for this age group. It would be
important to stress within the standards the theoretical understanding which
should underpin provision but also emphasis the value of child-led as well as
adult-directed play. The absence of play in the standards, together with the
inclusion of phonics and mathematics, suggests that the Government wishes
early years provision to become increasingly more formal, in direct
contradiction to the principles and requirements of the EYFS as well as the
wealth of research evidence on which the EYFS was based. Attached to this
response is the NUT document “Time for Play”, which sets out the research
evidence to support the use of play as an effective pedagogical approach.
17. Also missing from section 8 of the standards are any references to
professional development, either Early Years Teachers’ own or their
contribution to other colleagues’. A commitment to CPD and “self-review and
reflection” (standard 8.5) go hand in hand – both should be included in this
section. It may be, however, that CPD has been deliberately omitted from the
standards because of concerns by providers.
18. It is already well-established that the early years workforce has considerable
difficulty in accessing CPD for a variety of reasons, including employers who
are unwilling to invest in their workforce, fearing that this would lead to the
employee taking another position or asking for increased pay. The costs
incurred when a member of staff is absent from the setting are also a key
barrier to CPD take-up. To ensure the highest quality provision, CPD should
be an entitlement for everyone in the early years workforce. These standards,
together with those for Early Years Educators, would be a good place to start
to introduce this expectation.
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CONCLUSION
19. The NUT has advocated consistently the sentiment expressed by the
Government in More Great Childcare, that teaching young children is just as
important as and should have the same status as teaching children of
compulsory school age. It is incomprehensible, therefore, why it has now
proposed condemning a generation of the youngest children to poorer quality
education.
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