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|  WHAT THE NEW AWARD OF EARLY YEARS PROFESSIONAL STATUS (EYPS) MEANS FOR USWHAT IS AN EARLY YEARS PROFESSIONAL AND WHAT ARE THEY FOR?THE GOVERNMENT’S VIEW The role of Early Years Professional is said to be a response to the general under-qualification of the early years workforce. The Children’s Workforce Strategy (DfES, 2006), ‘ identified the benefits of developing the role of Early Years Professional (EYP) and confirmed the Government’s aim to have EYPs in all children’s centres by 2010 and in every full day care setting by 2015. (P.5 para. 1.4. Early Years Professional Prospectus, Children’s Workforce Development Council, 2006). A Transformation Fund of £250m has been set up to help the independent, private, and voluntary sectors fund recruitment of EYPs Earlier this year the CWDC held a consultation on the national standards to be met by those seeking EYP status and these are now set out in the EYP Prospectus, together with the four training pathways by which they may be achieved. EYP status will be ‘equivalent in Level to qualified teacher status’ (p.7 para 3.1) Early Years Professionals will be key to raising the quality of early years provision. They will be change agents to improve practice. They will lead practice across the Early Years Foundation Stage, support and mentor other practitioners and model the skills and behaviours that safeguard and promote good outcomes for children. (p.5 para 1.5) . . . The CWDC believe that, over time, only those with EYPS should lead the delivery of the new Early Years Foundation Stage (p6 para 2.4) The CWDC also states that the relationship between Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and EYPS should be clarified in time for the introduction of the new Early Years Foundation Stage in 2008’. (p.6 2.4) NCrNE’S VIEW. We do want better and more highly qualified practitioners and welcome career progression and improved pay and professional status for all early years workers. But, that is not what EYPS offers. Rather than enhancing existing roles it cuts across them to produce a hybrid – a multi-professional person rather than a specialist member of a multi-professional team. The first EYPs will ‘graduate’ in January, 2007, but there is, as yet, no indication of their pay and conditions of service. There has been no discussion of a national pay scale, so it is likely that individual employers will be able to make their own arrangements. Staff teams within maintained nursery schools and classes have traditionally brought together people with different qualifications, training and experience. These teams have managed to develop consistent working practices based on a shared body of professional knowledge. An essential part of their practice has been the requirement to critically analyse and improve their work through collaborative discussion and access to continuous professional development. Children’s Centres have assembled larger multi-professional teams and will have to learn together in the same way in order to offer young children the highest quality experience. Teachers presently working within children’s centres already have experience and INSET in working with children from birth to three, and most nursery teachers will be familiar with Birth to Three Matters. The new Early Years Foundation Stage spanning an age range from birth to five offers the opportunity to restore essential elements of child development, and early learning and pedagogy to ITT courses. This would produce early years teachers with the necessary depth of knowledge to teach the youngest children and to provide continuity across key stages. But, this opportunity has been ignored while the new award is rolled out. For teachers the implications are stark. The new EYP represents a direct threat both to teachers’ jobs, and to the quality of educational experience offered to young children across the Foundation Stage. Will the promised EYP replace the teacher within each children’s centre? Isn’t leading practice across the Foundation Stage the role of the specialist early years teacher? If only those with EYPS will eventually be able to ‘deliver’ the EYFS, will this mean that all reception and nursery teachers will have to undertake this ‘qualification’: and, similarly, that those without QTS will be able to ‘teach’ in nursery and reception classes? WHAT CAN WE DO NOW ? We should be aware that the directive to Local Authorities to equalise funding arrangements between the maintained and private, voluntary and independent sectors has already raised the possibility of teacher redundancy in some schools and centres. There seems little doubt that the EYP is to be used as a cheaper teacher. Teachers’ pay and conditions have been hard won and we should defend them. It is not yet mandatory for teachers within children’s centres to acquire EYPS. If teachers choose to do this they should be aware when applying for jobs that if they take up a teaching post within a children’s centre they are protected by the statutory provisions of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, but if the post is described as one simply requiring an EYP they ‘could be subject to considerably worse pay, conditions of service, and pension arrangements’ (NUT). We urge all teachers who find themselves in this position to consult their unions. Click here for NUT advice Those practitioners who are not teachers and who expect to improve their professional knowledge and career opportunities by working for EYPS should be questioning the lack of a national pay and conditions framework which would reflect that enhanced status and protect them from exploitation. Write to your MPs and ask them to press the question of the precise relationship between QTS and EYPS, and/or the prospect of a national pay and conditions package for those EYPs who are not teachers. The NUT website has a section labelled ‘early years campaign materials’. This will give you access to the names of all MPs and a framework to help you construct a letter. Click here for NUT advice Let NCrNE know when you have written and let us know the response. NCrNE needs all the local information you can gather about the impact so far of the new award; the status of teachers within children’s centres and any possible redundancies. Without this information we cannot conduct an effective national campaign and we have never needed one more. |
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