Qualified critic

As Cathy Nutbrown speaks, she gazes from her office tower block window over a grey cityscape. Sheffield is recovering from one of the country’s deepest winters. Nutbrown is clearly attached to the city she has lived in since she was 18. She forged her career at its nurseries and schools. Today she is the head of education at its university.

But the green shoots appearing on campus do not reflect her feelings about the government’s early education policies. Having waited seven months for Whitehall’s response to her review of early education and childcare qualifications, Nutbrown suggests the future will remain bleak. “We’ve got a really strong, sound legacy in early childhood education in this country,” she says. “What I fear is we will inherit a policy that can undo some decades of important achievements.”

In March, Nutbrown hit out against the reforms outlined in the government’s More Great Childcare strategy. In a paper entitled Shaking the Foundations of Quality?, she attacked plans to introduce a new teaching qualification and change staff-to-child ratios in childcare settings. “Most of my recommend­ations had, in effect, been rejected,” she wrote.

Two kinds of teacher
Nutbrown’s tract argued vehemently for the government to reconsider its position.
She says the intention behind her paper was to “clarify what had happened”. She is unhappy with the early years teacher qualification announced in More Great Childcare. “I had several emails from people with early years professional status thanking me for making it possible for them to become a teacher. But there will be two kinds of teacher,” she says.

Nutbrown says the new position will “create two tiers”. It will not require carers to have qualified teacher status, a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) or training that covers birth to seven, as she recommended. And it will not deliver parity between early educationalists and teachers.

“We need good qualifications, because that’s what children need,” says Nutbrown. “I wrote a long time ago that children need educated people working with them. That’s about children’s rights – it’s what they should be entitled to. Unfortunately we’re still in a position where people think the younger the child, the easier it must be.”

For Nutbrown, any change in early years ratios should go hand-in-hand with improved qualifications. “It’s not an either/or,” she says. “If you raise the level of the qualification, the capacity of the people with those good qualifications to work appropriately with children in the way that they’ve been trained to becomes reduced if the number of children increases. There’s no good case for reducing the number of adults that children have to spend time with.”

Nutbrown says her review did suggest ratios for teachers with an “appropriate degree, a PGCE course and qualified teacher status” could be reconsidered for three- to five-year-olds. “But I made it clear that for under-threes it shouldn’t be tampered with,” she says. “Watering down the ratios will mean children suffer. There are lots of things they’ll miss out on. There’s only so much time you can give on a one-to-one basis and if you increase the number of children, then you decrease the amount of time those children get.”

The changes in More Great Childcare are due to come into force from September. Nutbrown is concerned about the pace of change. “If ratios are altered on the basis of better quality and qualifications, we have got to have those better quality qualifications in place by the time ratios are to be watered down,” she says.

“There needs to be more time for reflection before change happens. Where changes in ratios occur – and I would advocate that they shouldn’t – I worry that one will happen before the other.”

In person, Nutbrown neither raves nor rants. Her office is awash with colour from the bold canvases she paints in her spare time. Fairy lights and paper lamps illuminate the space, tucked among creeping plants, ornaments (“gifts from my students”) and wooden artist mannequins. She replies calmly and thoughtfully, occasionally adjusting her red and yellow velvet jacket, which complements her bichrome hair.

Rapid learning
When she speaks about young children, Nutbrown emphasises the urgency for every hour to be accounted for during this stage of development. “For two-year-olds, anyone who works with them knows they’re creative, busy, interested,” she says. “They need adults who can support that kind of rapid learning.”

She is concerned about what will happen to children caught up in a transition phase, as the reforms take effect, potentially without the right qualifications in place. “You’re only three once,” she stresses. “Children need what they need when they need it. I can’t be clearer on this. We should not tamper and change for the worst – we really should not.”

Nutbrown warns that failing now will store up problems for the future. “If the learning gap is wide at four, the learning gap is still wide when they are teenagers,” she says. “We can’t be short-term on this, we have to think. In Shakin