Helen

I can never keep poinsettias from Christmas to New Year- maybe I'm chucking them away too soon?!

Now I've gone from joyous to terrified. 😬

It has to be my bamboo growing! Last week, the new shoots were about 10 cms high and this week they are about 150! It's totally magic. 😃

Really agree with the emphasis changing from regulatory to advisory- rather like the LA advisory teams that used to exist but have now largely disappeared. One of the difficulties, in my view, is that an inspector can write about 30 pages of notes whilst they're carrying out the inspection but nobody (apart from Ofsted) ever get to see these. I talk from experience when I inspected during the Tribal contract years. In these notes, I'd include all the wonderful things I saw- what made that setting unique and how much learning the children were engaging with. I'd quote verbatim from staff and children and really paint as accurate a picture as I could, of my day in the setting. I'd also detail any problems and areas for improvement, as evidence for the final judgements, actions and recommendations, etc. The problem comes after this- the inspector then has to use those notes to create a very short, dry inspection report- one that could be about virtually any other setting. All the nuance has gone and the inspector can only select from a limited number of phrases- if you've read lots of reports, you'll know what I mean! If only those notes could be made into a lengthier, accurate picture of the setting, ending with a few actions/recommendations. No one-word judgements. Of course, there would still need to be an inadequate category for significant safeguarding concerns, where frequent subsequent inspections should be arranged until the setting reaches a safe standard.

It really helped me to reflect on the considerable opportunities we have to influence young and growing minds and that our learning in these areas never stops. A great chapter.

What a wonderful resource this is! I've just watched a couple of the videos in the 'Interactive Reading' section. I particularly like the way in which both educators introduce new vocabulary within the discussions of the story, eg 'unique', 'gills', 'hollow' etc. Such a difficult skill to learn when you're new to early years practice but what a joy to watch when it's done well. 😃.

The article states it'll be from September. I'm sure everyone will be watching closely 😬

Reading the article in April's Nursery World from Claire Coutinho MP, she states that from this September, the average hourly rate for 2 year olds will rise to £8. and to £5.50 for 3 and 4 year olds. How will this affect you? Will it be sufficient to keep vulnerable settings open and even, perhaps to raise the hourly rate for your staff?

Welcome to the FSF, Plin 😀. It's lovely to have you here!

Having spoken to Early Years Equality co-founder Claire Kenyon for our recent podcast, I wanted to let everyone here know, if you don't know already, about a demonstration march they are organising. I'll certainly be going to help raise awareness of the exceptional practice and provision that goes largely unrecognised, in thousands of early years settings. My hope is that we can stop using the word 'childcare' to diminish this important work in supporting young children's learning and development. Are you coming to the demo? 😃 Information about Early Years Equality demonstration can be found here.

That's a disaster, sunnyday! We have more, I think. PM me your address and we'll put it in the post 😃 Cait- that's a good point about the birthday announcement threads. We should reinstate those as our numbers grow again.

Just wanted to let people know about this excellent publication (Edited by Julian Grenier and Caroline Vollans) and how much we, the FSF/Tapestry education team, are enjoying it. We meet every week to discuss all things early years and primary and at every other meeting we choose a chapter to read and discuss. It's been such a great experience- keeping us all up to date with the latest thinking and helping us to express our own views to each other. If I were still running a setting, I'd be using this in staff meetings. Thoroughly recommend it. I think some of my colleagues are going to come in and say something about the chapters they chose, but the one I was particularly interested in was Jan Dubiel's 'Understanding Assessment and Curriculum'. I like the way the author outlined how in the past, practitioners have often been told to gather and record evidence for the purpose of justification, and it 'became an unwelcome and time-consuming additional dimension to the educator's role'. I'm sure we'd all agree with that! But Jan describes how important the appropriate documenting of children's can be and refers to Reggio Emilia and Margaret Carr's Learning Stories. How wonderful it would be if we consistently moved closer to those ways of recording and, more importantly, understanding, each child's unique journey. As he says, 'To celebrate and understand the nature and trajectory of a child's progress.' As an added bonus, these methods also help to develop the professional skills of educators, as they share and discuss children's learning with their colleagues and the children's families.

Yup- Neil explains it all so simply. Well, clearly not simply enough for some politicians. I don't know where he gets his energy from- he's been saying this for decades.

This is a good summary from Frontier Economics Hugely telling that elsewhere, the government are congratulating everyone on the proposed increase in capacity for childcare, but absolutely no mention, as far as I can see, about early education.

Main headline: The new rules mean from April 2024, parents of two year olds will get 15 hours free care. From September 2024 children from nine months will get 15 hours free childcare and from September 2025 all under 5s will get 30 hours free childcare. Of course, until we see the figures for the increased hourly rate of funding, it's impossible to see if this will help with salaries and sustainability. I'm uncomfortable with the increased ratio for 2 years olds- that's not going to make staff want to stay in the job.

Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting to hear the details. Relieved that the government realises the sector crisis, but concerned that their proposal won't help with staff recruitment and retention, or raise the status of working in the early years. Fingers crossed.

Such a difficult situation- after all the good things that were put in place- graduate fund, EYPS, Foundation Degrees, all excellent at attracting and keeping high quality staff. But the stress of the work and generally poor pay has ultimately led to us losing many, many wonderful early years teachers and practitioners.

I'm hearing from parents that Ofsted inspectors ask them how the settings inform them about their child's learning and development and whether they believe they receive sufficient information to continue their learning at home. They also often ask if parents are able to share information about their child's home activities, with nursery staff and what the setting does with that information.

It is obviously good that the government is identifying high quality early years provision is essential to support children with SEND, but it needs sensible funding. Until that happens, children, families and early years staff all struggle to access and provide what we all know children need. Increasing nursery funding by a few pennies here and there just isn't going to cut it.

Hi lovely to see you here, Mundia and Sunnyday! Very happy times in the early days of the forum- and I can now admit, after 20 years, that it was indeed me who had 5 different names and was talking to myself for the best part of a month! 😂 I think Mundia might have already known that.... I love your expression Sunnyday, 'You can take the girl out of early years...' I totally agree. Can't imagine not being interested in what's going on and how we educate and care for our youngest children. There's always something to learn and get excited about.

You're welcome! Are you, like many others, finding it hard to recruit qualified practitioners?

Hi Anju, The statutory framework states that one member of staff must hold at least a level 3 and that 50% of your other staff must have at least level 2. So, no, they can't be working towards that level 2; they must have achieved it. Page 29 of the statutory document.

Sorry, Looby Loo! Hopefully it isn't too stressful 😃 Have a great weekend.

It was my very favourite part of the day when I taught, both in school and in my nursery. The children always loved it, as did I when I was at school. There's nothing better than getting lost in a story read by your teacher. In nursery, I found it always worked best after the morning tidy up, but before snacktime. Children had had a great time leading their own play, with one or two adult-led activities on the go if they were interested, and were really ready for a sit down and a good book! When I taught in school, that end of the day slot was great- I've not been in school for quite some time now, so not sure if that's still popular?

If you're a regular visitor to the FSF, you may well be wondering what on earth's happened today! 😃 You might know the FSF is approaching its 20th birthday and we have some exciting things in the pipeline for this year; one of which is to make it easier to start discussions, join in with existing ones and to look for specific subjects that may have been discussed before. One of the ways to do this is to reduce the number of forum areas so members don't have to spend ages deciding where to post. So I've had a bit of a sort out today and we now have, in a new area called 'Practice and Provision', 11 forum areas from which to choose: Teaching and Learning Early Years Setting Management Reception Learning Differences-SEND Diversity & Inclusion Inspections Research Courses, events and CPD Staff Lounge Key Stage 1 & 2 Vacancies I've archived (still available if you scroll right down to the archive section) some of the very old conversations relating to out of date statutory guidance, etc and moved relevant and current and/or still useful discussions into the appropriate areas. Hopefully it all makes sense. If I've done anything stupid, please let me know!