Why targets for tots are angering the experts

Last month the newspapers were full of headlines spelling out what we should be doing with our infants - "Babies assessed on gurgling and babbling" and "Is your baby playing with its toes yet? If not the Government wants to know." They conjured up terrifying visions of the nanny state marching into our lives and telling us how to handle our under-fives.

Why are we so afraid? The Government is introducing the Early Years Foundation Stage, a set of developmental stages for babies and toddlers that all childminders and nursery workers will need to pay attention to by September 2008.

Parents at the Bringing Up Baby nursery in Clapham, south London, are certainly worried about undue red tape and bossiness. "A curriculum is a wonderful thing," says Alex Harvey, mother of Kirsten, aged four-and-a-half. "But I do worry about the bureaucracy of it all." Laura Dale, the mother of three children aged betweenfive months and four-years-old, agrees. "All practitioners need guidelines in which to work," she says. "But young children just need to play and interact with each other."

The nursery's manager, Nicolette Warnes, is sympathetic to the Government reform encapsulated in its new Early Years Foundation Stage. But even she admits that change is needed. "The guidelines are necessary because the previous ones needed updating. But I wonder whether it should cover children under three-years-old. It would be like putting them on a treadmill."

The reason for the reform is that ministers are worried that the care of young children around the country - with childminders or in nurseries and schools - is variable. They want to ensure that all tiny tots get the best possible start in life, regardless of where they live or what kind of child care they receive. "The Early Years Foundation Stage is about ensuring quality and consistency across all settings where care is provided for young children," says Beverley Hughes, Minister for Children, Young People and Families.

There are no set topics for children to learn under the new regime. Instead, early years practitioners are required to pay attention to four concepts: each child should be treated as an individual; their environment matters; relationships are crucial; learning and development is vital. The idea is for these principles to guide the work of those looking after the nation's young children.

But some critics believe the four principles will be largely overlooked by those working in the field because of the complexity of the framework. It is 91 pages long and contains more than 500 tasks and skills, listed on a grid in the appendix.

The worry is that practitioners without good training could find it difficult to cope. They would be tempted to use the grid to teach and assess children, according to Laura Henry, director of Childcare Consultancy, which specialises in providing support and training for child carers.

They would look at the grid, and check whether children in their care could do things such as play with their fingers and toes by the time they are 11-months-old, or count from one to nine and recognize common shapes by ages three-and-a-half to five. The framework cautions against this kind of practice, but the fact that these development stages are spelt out so clearly demands that early years workers take note of them.

The framework wants practitioners to observe children over time, and write notes so that a fair and accurate description is obtained of their development. This is sophisticated stuff, and doing formative assessments may prove challenging for many staff.

The experts agree that the grid could start to dominate the way in which children are cared for. "The problem will arise if people start to teach to the grid: in other words, they look at a child, find their age on the grid, and think that they ought to teach something to produce the result on the grid," says Julian Grenier, manager of Kate Greenaway Children's Centre, in Islington, north London. "The best practice offers young children open experiences - things that can lead anywhere."

One way to ensure that practitioners use the new framework correctly is to lay on training for them. Jennie Lindon, early years consultant and author, is worried that without it they will go into the new structure with serious misconceptions.

"I'm picking up concerns that the new framework lays down new targets for babies," she says. "This is not what the Early Years Foundation Stage is about. Practitioners need to read the pack so that they are properly informed. Good practice has not changed."

The framework contains many examples of good practice. For example, to help babies settle into nursery, staff should learn lullabies that children know from home. Practitioners are encouraged to have a flexible approach to nursery routines to allow toddlers to carry on playing and avoid frustration. And to help develop self-esteem, staff should help children to express their feelings.

If the Government wants to ensure that early years practitioners use the four principles, then training has to be a priority, according to Lesley Staggs, former director of The Foundation Stage. "I think training is the real key to all of this," she says. "And by that I mean in-depth professional development that ensures practitioners know about child development, early learning and care, observations and the planning of next steps for children."

The training must be of a high quality and be consistent so that all staff learn the same thing, says Nicolette Warnes. Other workers, such as Ofsted childcare inspectors and local authority advisers, should also be included to ensure that "we are all singing from the same hymn sheet", she says.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has set aside a fund of £250m, some of which will be used to provide training for all those working in the early years field. Additional Sure Start funds will also be tapped by local authorities.

According to other experts, staffing is crucial. "You can have a fantastic piece of guidance but it's only as good as those who have the responsibility of implementing it," says Siobhan Carolin, visiting lecturer in infancy at Roehampton University. "If you have inexperienced and poorly supported staff, then you are unlikely to have good outcomes for children in their care."

Staffing issues have been a concern for a while, and some believe the Government has been misguided in targeting resources on the framework. "The big problems in early years are things like poor staff training and high turnover of staff," says Grenier. "These aren't problems you solve simply from Whitehall by producing new laws and guidance."

The current early years workforce consists largely of NVQ level 2 workers - roughly the same level as GCSE - and unqualified staff, but the Government is keen to address this. Consultation has begun on ways to improve their qualifications. Unqualified staff are being encouraged to work towards an NVQ qualification. The new framework requires only those in a supervisory/senior role to be qualified to NVQ level 3, equivalent to A-level.

The ethos of the nursery is also important, particularly how a nursery manager relates to the staff, parents and children. This is just as likely to affect how children are cared for as a new early years structure.

There is a simple solution to all of these issues - and that is qualified staff. "The key to it all is a better qualified workforce that exceeds the minimum requirements," says Stagg. "We can achieve this by improving pay and conditions of employment for early years workers and by providing good quality training. This will require significant public investment over many years. We need to move away from the view that you don't need well qualified staff to work with young children."

So does the Government want to know if your baby is playing with its toes yet? The answer is no. But it does need to know that by including the grid in its new framework it has sown a lot of confusion in the minds of early years workers and the public at large.

In brief

What is the Early Years Foundation Stage?

It is a play-based approach to the care and education of children covering different areas of development. The structure brings three pieces of existing guidance into one framework.

Who does it apply to?

All registered childminders, nurseries, out-of-school clubs, creches and schools with nursery facilities for children from zero to five years. They must implement the new structure by September 2008.

What does it consist of?

There is a statutory framework; practice guidance with development grid; principles into practice cards; poster; and a CD-ROM.

What is it based on?

Four guiding principles: each child is special, individual and capable; they learn to build relationships and grow into strong independent people; their surroundings have an effect on their learning; children grow and develop at different rates, and all areas of their development are important. Care and education are based on these concepts and "play experiences".