The Liberal Democrat Education Association Conference 2014 was a thoroughly enjoyable event with friendly people and some fantastic debate. One such debate was the emphasis placed on professionals teaching in early years education.
It is important to note, governance relationships within the modern welfare-state has evolved from its top-down centralised roots to a system of partnerships, networks and stakeholders. Equally, the philosophy of state-interventionism has moved away from the notion that education professionals exist in isolation from other stakeholders such as parents as well as other areas of welfare such as health. Therefore to direct ones faith in “the professional” is to limit ones early years outlook.
To give an example, there was an insightful episode of Channel 4’s Super Nanny where a Child Psychologist PHD specialising in early years needed Super Nanny to help her with getting her own children under control. Which professional would you want to help with your children? Clearly the PHD mum had the qualifications but Super Nanny had a functional understanding of the children, the environment and the interventions required. This demonstrates when we are talking about the “early years professional” we must be cautious not to delimit this concept in a way that precludes positive outcomes.
In my view there is a difference between “getting in a professional” and “professionalising” early years education. While professionals have their place in steering early years education, I’m deeply concerned about the outcomes we expect them to achieve. “Professionalisation” of early years should be about improving the functionality of the local early years network from professional to parent. This is partially being achieved by one to one support for families in many local authorities, but in addition we need to further the ambition. We need to start growing nurture groups that can sustain themselves as well as achieve ambitious wellbeing outcomes without constant state facilitation.
The nurture groups that do exist do not form part of the professional network in early years reinforcing the top-down paradigm within the sector. As instinctive advocates of localism Lib Dems naturally favour bottom-up approaches to all kinds of welfare interventions including early years. However, this instinct for “professional knows best” creates the perverse outcome of a “bottom-up” paradigm that doesn’t include the bottom i.e. service users. This in turn reinforces the overly abstract top-down decision-making localism aims to address.
In addition political enthusiasts from all parties have a tendency to glaze over the extent to which “getting in professionals” absorbs resource. It is important to remember that from a functional perspective professionals are a tool that exist not in isolation but along with the other tools of early years development like most importantly mum and dad.
Before I joined the Lib Dem ranks one of the things that put me off the Party was the absolute notion of the professional knows best, so it will be of little surprise to readers I think it is important to advocate professionalisation of early years over sending in the professionals.
* Patrick McAuley is a councillor in Stockport
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2 Comments
My Daughter is a teacher assistant in greater Manchester she provide invaluable service in class and outside she is not a qualified teacher but be sure she is professional and dedicated in her service
Well said Patrick, I completely agree with you. I am a professional educationalist, but I fully recognise that we have increasingly been turning our children’s and grandchildren’s lives into something quite unnecessarily overstructured and frankly rather pompous. Simply having fun in playgroups and nurseries doing the things that those trained and untrained have done with small children for many years, is what young children need. The excessive constraints and rules that create a modern forest of thorns around our children are horribly counterproductive. Of course we need to look after their safety and nurture their talents, but it can be done in a much freer way than is currently the case. Most of what young mothers and other carers do with their children is instinctual, eg showing them how to turn the pages of a book or devising strategies on how to count or speaking to them in ways that reinforce what they are learning naturally about their language. I think it is particularly instructive to note how in most of the countries that excel in education children go to school a lot later, eg at age seven in Sweden and in Sweden their pre-schools are much less prescriptive than here. I would go so far as to say that, as a professional who has dealt with ages 11-80 over the years, the whole modern approach is anal. Keep the mavericks and the one-offs in the teaching profession, unless there is some gross misconduct. They are the teachers who your chldren will remember. If anyone doubts it, let them read ‘STOP! Don’t read this’ by Leonora Rustamova, a tale of how a hugely talented teacher of the kind of children who are most difficult to deal with, lost her job because of a jobsworth headteacher.