SSSC Consultation on Qualification Requirements for Phase 2 Registration

Introductory Statement

SPPA welcomes the opportunity to respond to the consultation. SPPA believes that services to young children and families will be enhanced by registering key groups of early years workers and by regulating the education and training of the early years workforce. Besides enhancing the quality of provision within settings SPPA believes that registration will promote the professional nature of working in the early years and will raise the status of those working in the sector.

Question 1

a. SPPA fully endorses the principles the Council is proposing to determine the qualifications required by registrants.
b. The integration of practice and learning will promote the development of reflective practitioners whose practice is firmly grounded in a sound knowledge and understanding of how children can best be supported in their learning and development and to reach their all-round potential. It should help to diminish some of the tensions around the values given to qualifications gained through the academic route and those gained through the vocational route.

Question 2

(see additional note to this question)

a. SPPA agrees with the scope of the workforce identified in the document. However………………………..
b. The growth of services for Pre-3s is beginning to generate titles specific to this part of the sector, for example, pre-3 play development worker.
There are people who engage with young children in the home or out of the home, for example, Home-Start Visitors, Be-frienders. Many of these people will be volunteers who work under the supervision of a project co-ordinator. Also there is no mention of special needs carers or support workers, for example special needs auxiliary workers, special needs playworkers.

Additional note to question 2

There has to be consistency with the Care Commission in the use of titles. For registration purposes a playleader may be named as a manager and the voluntary committee as providers albeit it is the voluntary management committee who manage the group and the playleader is one of a team who is providing the day to day care and education for the children.

Question 3 (see additional note to this question)

Frontline workers: the minimum level of qualification a person should have or be working to achieve should be at a level 2 or equivalent, for example SVQ level 2 Child Care and Education, Scottish Group Award at intermediate level, NC Units in Childcare and Education.

Supervisers: the minimum level of qualification a person in a supervisory capacity should hold or be working towards is a level 3 or equivalent, for example, level 3 SVQ Childcare and Education, HNC Child Care and Education. SPPA recommends that play leaders in SPPA groups work towards achieving a level three SVQ or equivalent.

Managers: there must be range of qualifications for managers depending on their role and function within the service. Those people who manage a service but do not have any direct contact with children, for example, nursery chains, may need generic management qualifications.

Others who have substantial contact with children but who also have a responsibility for line management of staff, budgets, quality assurance etc will require a qualification designed for child care and education workers, for example level 4 Early Years Care and Education in Management.

Other practitioners in a setting might have responsibility for managing a room in a setting or for carrying out key worker functions. In these cases they will require a specific child care and education qualification for example level 3 SVQ Early Years Care and Education, HNC or a level 4 SVQ Advanced Practitioner award. However, they will also need to be competent leaders, good communicators, team builders and arbiters of quality within their domain. Therefore, they are likely to need enhancements to their original qualification to obtain and/or sustain their registration. Accessing ‘bolt on units’ covering these competences should be acceptable to the Council, for example units from the PDA Childcare and Education, from Level 4 SVQ Early Years Child Care and Education or from generic management units.

Additional note to Question 3
SPPA has difficulty in ascribing the three defined categories of workers to the workforce operating in its member groups.

The terminology of frontline worker is difficult to apply to playgroups and there is ambiguity when applying the terms superviser and manager. Also, some titles can depict several different roles, for example, playleader can be prefaced by senior, assistant, relief. Similarly, playworker is used in this way.

Many staff in playgroups do not operate under the day-to-day supervision of a superviser or manager. Almost all would be operating with some degree of responsibility in respect of working directly with the children and in planning and organising activities and learning opportunities.

Most staff working in a playgroup are designated as play leaders and their remits define roles and functions which require them to be able to function to at least a level 3 competence and SPPA recommends this level or equivalent to member groups.

However, within that role only a few playleaders will have line management responsibility for other members of staff. This responsibility is vested in the voluntary management committee who are the employers of the staff and the managers of the service. Playleaders do, however, have responsibility for supervising and managing the day to day activities of the setting to ensure that children are sensitively and warmly cared for and that they receive quality learning and development experiences. Hence, play leaders may straddle the superviser/manager categories.

Additional Comments:

1. Registration with the SSSC should not preclude people who hold no qualification from entering the early years workforce. It will be necessary to give individuals time to work towards a qualification. A period of two years seems reasonable.

2. A number of people working in playgroups come to the job through their involvement in a group and a growing desire to work with young children. Many use playgroup employment as a stepping-stone back into the workplace. Few will hold a qualification. Some will be daunted at the prospect of having to gain a qualification. The Council must recognise that prior to enrolling for a qualification some individuals may require support to enable them to feel confident to take up learning again and to work towards achieving a qualification.

Induction and introductory training will help in this process. Consideration should be given to establishing recognition for this initial training, even though content is likely to be different across different parts of the sector.

Clusters of accredited units could be offered in ’bite size chunks’ to new entrants to the workforce, which can then subsequently be used towards gaining a qualification. Core units could be identified as a starting point, for example, child development, the importance of play, child protection, health and safety.

3. Within the workforce currently there are many people who have years of experience and learning but do not hold a qualification. The use of APEL should be more widely used so that people in this position can be supported to gain a qualification more quickly.

4. Holding a qualification is only one facet of a person’s suitability to work with young children. SPPA assumes it will be one of a number of criteria looked for by the Care Commission under the ‘fit person’ criteria for the registration of services.

5. SPPA welcomes the review of the national occupational standards in Early Years Care and Education and of the HNC. The review should give an opportunity to redefine the content and structure of qualifications so that they enable people to move more freely from one part of the sector to another without the need to gain another qualification.

6. One of the things that demotivate people is the lack of clear information about what is expected of them. The qualifications the workforce will need and the pathways to achieving them will need to be clearly defined by the SSSC and disseminated widely throughout the sector.

7. Qualifications gained prior to the introduction of registration and which are no longer available should be recognised if they were obtained within a recent period, for example, the last 10 years and the registrant can show evidence of continual professional development.

8. The SSSC must make it clear to registrants that continual professional development will be a pre-requisite of maintaining registration with the Council. What mechanisms will the Council put in place to ensure this happens and to assess the continued competence of those on the register? This will need to be clearly spelled out so that the workforce understand what is expected of them.

9. Registration of the workforce who currently work in non registered provision
must be clarified, for example staff in a toddler groups, staff in services which operate for less than two hours. So too must be the registration of those who may only work for short periods of time, for example, on summer play schemes, or short term crèches.

10. While SPPA welcomes the drive towards a qualified workforce it recognises that member groups will face difficulties as they work to support staff to attain a qualification. For example, the costs, which will include staff cover costs, study support costs etc as well as the cost of the qualification and associated training, may prove too much for some groups to cope with and may lead to closure.

11. SPPA, also recognises that comparatively low pay in member groups may have an impact on staff recruitment and retention when staff are qualified.

12. SPPA recognises that there will be a range of qualifications and routes to achieving a qualification and welcomes that approach. However, experience has shown that unless parity of esteem is established between qualifications, then some qualifications may be perceived as of lesser value and unacceptable to prospective employers.

Margaret Brunton
Senior Development Officer (Training Development)
Scottish Pre-school Play Association
45 Finnieston Street
Glasgow
G3 8JU

Tel no: O141 221 4148
Email: margaret.brunton@sppa.org.uk
Date: 2.10.03