Nutbrown calls for all early years staff to hold Level 3 qualification

Professor Cathy Nutbrown’s final report into early education and childcare qualifications concluded that a Level 2 qualification is not “sufficient to equip a practitioner for work in the early years”.

She has therefore recommended that by September 2022, all staff working within the Early Years Foundation Stage framework should be qualified to a minimum of Level 3.

Foundations for Quality also calls upon Level 3 qualifications to be strengthened to include more on child development and play; special educational needs and disability; inclusivity and diversity, and a focus on the birth to seven age range.

To help with the transition to the 2022 goal, Nutbrown recommends that from September 2013, 50 per cent of staff in group settings will need to possess at least a Level 3 qualification, and from September 2015 this should increase to 70 per cent.

In the foreword to her report, Nutbrown said: “Our present qualifications system does not always equip practitioners with the knowledge and experience necessary for them to offer children high quality care and education, and to support professional development throughout their careers.

“The quality of children’s experiences are at the core of this report and an important part of this is the status of the early years workforce in society.

“I recognise that the current economic climate means the sector, government and parents are all under financial pressure. However, the many responses to my call for evidence have demonstrated the increasing professionalism of the early years sector, which means it can, with support from government, bring about change.”

To boost the quality of early years students, Nutbrown recommends that Level 2 qualifications in English and maths must be achieved before students begin a Level 3 early education or childcare course.

Targeting early years course providers, Nutbrown said that only settings rated good or outstanding by Ofsted should be used to host students on placement.

She recommends that newly qualified practitioners should be supported in their first six months of employment through mentoring.

In an attempt to raise the status of the sector, Nutbrown calls for the establishment of an early years specialist route to qualified teacher status to bring the profession more in line with teaching. This would eventually replace current routes to the early years professional status.

If all her recommendations are accepted by government and implemented, Nutbrown believes a license to practice for early years staff would be unnecessary.

On the controversial topic of staff-to-child ratios, Nutbrown argues that these could be revised to take into account staff who hold qualified teacher status.

The report also says that plans for a single early years qualification should be “abandoned” and asks the Department for Education to conduct research to ensure staff from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are not excluded from more senior roles.

“There is an urgency, and though some improvements will not be immediate, others of my recommendations can, and should, happen quickly,” Nutbrown said.

“Longer term commitment will be needed to arrest a decline in the standards of qualifications and enhance their quality for the future. However, there cannot be compromise on quality and we must be unrelenting in our insistence on improving experiences for all babies and young children.”