Sector cautiously welcomes relaxation of early years staffing ratios due to Covid-19
Joe Lepper
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Early years leaders have cautiously welcomed the government’s decision to relax staff to child ratios to help cope with workforce shortages amid a surge of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
The early years foundation stage (EYFS) framework states that ratios may be relaxed in "exceptional circumstances".
Ministers have confirmed that staffing shortages caused by the latest wave of the pandemic is “an exceptional circumstance in which the staff to child ratios set out in the EYFS can temporarily be changed if necessary, for example to respond to Covid-related workforce absences”.
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However, childcare settings are warned that they continue to be “responsible for maintaining the quality of care, safety and security of children”.
Early years leaders have welcomed the move to help nurseries, which were already been dealing with recruitment problems before the pandemic.
National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) chief executive Purnima Tanuku said the relaxing of ratios “being given to nurseries and early years settings will be important as many are facing daily challenges as to how they can staff their rooms”.
She said that nurseries are “best placed to understand the risks and needs for their own settings” amid the pandemic.
“However, we know that this situation is far from ideal,” she added.
“Staff absences will continue to be a major challenge for childcare providers while the numbers of Covid cases remain so high, on top of the chronic recruitment crisis which has been blighting the sector for years.”
The sector is being surveyed by the NDNA about staff and child absences amid the pandemic, to support its lobbying efforts around support for early years.
📢 Are you struggling with high staff and child absences? Please take a couple of minutes to fill in our quick survey about staff and child absences 📝
— NDNA (@NDNAtalk) January 7, 2022
This data is vital for us to be able to lobby the government to give support to early years❗️⬇️⬇️https://t.co/qM2fLGfwff
Meanwhile, Early Years Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch has backed the “welcome clarification that the government does consider the pandemic to be an exceptional circumstance”.
"That is no doubt, however, that the safety and wellbeing of all children attending early years settings must always be a priority, and so it is critical that any providers who opt to use this flexibility do so with the utmost care and caution, with any temporary changes underpinned by robust risk assessments,” he said.
"Of course, with the early years workforce already under extreme pressure, moving to a situation where already-stretched staff teams are expected to look after a greater number of children is not a long-term solution.”
He added that this latest spate of staff shortages is so severe “because our sector went into this pandemic in an incredibly precarious position”.
Leitch said: "Years of poor pay, little support and even less recognition have led to a recruitment and retention crisis which has forced many settings to operate with much fewer staff that they otherwise might. Ultimately these issues must be addressed if we are to ensure that the early years is not put in a similarly vulnerable position in the future."
Before the temporary rule change the early years staffing ratios included one adult for every three children under the age of two and one adult to every four children aged two and above.
Earlier this month the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), which runs 39 nurseries and pre-schools in the capital, revealed it was “nearly 100 staff short” due to the health crisis.
LEYF chief executive June O’Sullivan said: “Putting more children into the space with fewer staff, no matter how qualified they are, would go against care and education, but having a little more flexibility around unqualified staff would balance that out.”