Education: Early Years

Lord True Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for introducing this important debate. I declare an interest as the leader of a local authority, though as a matter of fact, I do not take part in early years policy by virtue of another interest—or perhaps I should say “love”—as my wife is principal of a Montessori nursery school in my local authority area.

I want to talk about Montessori. When I last spoke on this subject, Montessori educators were afraid that the homogenising drive of what was then the CWDC risked sidelining their own unique approaches and qualifications. These are reflected in the work of 7,500 Montessori practitioners in the United Kingdom. Their basic contention was that Montessori qualifications should be recognised as valid and relevant in their own right. Frankly, no one who knows anything about the contribution of Montessori education worldwide would disagree with that. Therefore, I was grateful to my two noble friends on the Front Bench today for receiving a delegation to discuss this after I had spoken. Improvements then followed. There was an invitation to the Montessori community to participate in Professor Nutbrown’s work, but still some doubts remained. The Nutbrown report was published last spring. It thankfully acknowledged the contribution made by Montessori education and purported to leave 40% of a qualification non-prescribed to relate to diverse ways of delivery, including, theoretically, Montessori.

Since then, the Montessori Schools Association tells me that there has again been a period of silence from the department on the Montessori question. That may be understandable as a new Minister looked into a brief that she had inherited from her predecessor. New qualifications would have to be validated by an examination board and time for validation and the introduction of qualifications in September 2013, clarifying how Montessori and Steiner qualifications would fit into that, is now shrinking. Those sectors await a departmental response and a timeframe for their plans so they can start development work. I share the question of my noble friend. Can the Minister shed any more light on the timescale for operation?

I would also like to say something about the private sector as a whole, on which we depend so much for the delivery of this crucial service. I worry sometimes about the balance between the private sector as it is and the state sector. It seems to me that many people—I hear this from many Montessori educators and others—still feel that there are too many documents of instruction. Even the basic EYFS framework publication runs to 110 pages, not all of it mandatory but increasingly regarded as so. How Ofsted could ever fully inspect all these requirements is unclear to me and the phrasing of the framework is also unclear. For example, the section on food handling by staff requires formal training, but the training is undefined. Is it about needing a level 2 NVQ to peel an apple, as some authorities are saying, or is it just staff awareness more generally?

I would like to say a word about funding. I endorse everything that has been said about the importance of early intervention and early years education, but I am less sanguine than some about the possibility of providing ever more millions of pounds in pursuit of what some see as an aim of universal two to five year-old education for people of all measure of resources when the country is plunging into debt at the rate it is now and we do not even have enough primary school places. The greatest and most cherished influence on my early years education was my mother, to whom I am proud to declare here in this House my lasting debt. I agree with what my noble friend Lady Jenkin said about the selfless contribution of millions of mothers and good parents and how important good parenting is. I recognise and support the evidence of the value of early years education. It would be hard not to, having been married for a third of a century this week to a passionate advocate of it. However, we may need to focus on prime areas of need in some respects and we certainly need to preserve diversity and choice. That includes the private sector. Can the Minister say, therefore, why there is still not equality of treatment between the maintained and private sectors in adult to child ratios?

The so-called free entitlement, whose rationale I understand, is, in some respects a fiction. I spoke about this at length on another occasion and I am not going to repeat it today, but in many areas the so-called free entitlement has never covered the real costs of education and care. Many authorities have turned a blind eye to what is really charging by another name, but if, as is now suggested, the so-called free entitlement is extended or a heavily subsidised rate is extended to 25 hours, then I fear that the non-maintained sector in sessional day care could be eliminated or be forced to go private and close its doors to those seeking financial support. That would be another push towards the two nations we wish to avoid and entail a significant deadweight cost in replacing, at the taxpayers’ expense, private sector settings that might be squeezed out.

Other providers in the Montessori education sector tell me that some local authorities are trying to enforce acceptance of the two year-old scheme by saying that unless providers sign up to it they will lose three and four year-old funding. That sounds like blackmail and I hope that the Minister will condemn it. We must be careful about hyper-regulation. Small independent settings face many burdens, including the new pension requirements, which will be enormous, and the requirement to match flexible working. Of course, many settings could benefit from better qualified staff, but it does not need to entail a one-size-fits-all structure.

In conclusion, I am nervous about aspects of EYPS. The 10-year strategy said that unless sector leaders had EYPS, they would not be able to continue in that role. Is that still the position? The state has not covered itself with glory in every respect in post-war education and should be a little more understanding of the immense contribution of the private sector and perhaps a little less imposing sometimes.