Scottish Executive response to the early years inquiry
Scottish ministers welcomed the debate on strengthening early services, sparked by the Scottish Parliament early years inquiry earlier this year.
Ministers responded to the inquiry this summer to reaffirm the Scottish Executive’s commitment to securing the best possible start in life for children in Scotland.
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The Parliament’s Education Committee explored a wide range of issues, including:
- improving the quality of the workforce
- the role of teachers
- training and education for the early years workforce
- curriculum issues
- funding and planning for children services
- research.
The committee’s report had ‘three underlying themes: the need to focus and prioritise resources on the most disadvantaged children, to upskill the early years workforce and to integrate children’s services and funding arrangements’. It also stated: ‘The single most important factor in improving quality in the early years sector is raising skills.’
A highly skilled workforce
In their response to the National Review of the Early Years and Childcare Workforce, ministers set out their vision for the workforce. The Executive wants services which combine quality and flexibility, and it promotes a well qualified workforce and, in particular, well qualified leadership, as fundamental to delivering this.
Support for teachers and local planning
The National Review of the Early Years and Childcare Workforce dealt mainly with the non-teaching staff in the early years sector. The committee’s report also discussed the role of teachers in early education and made a number of related recommendations. While the Executive believes teachers have a distinctive and important role to play in the provision of pre-school education it has no plans to require local authorities to place teachers in early years settings. This is because ministers consider that local authorities are best placed to decide how best to use teachers in their pre-school services.
The committee also made recommendations about staff training and suggested that there might be scope for joint professional development involving teachers and other early years staff. The Executive agrees that this would have potential benefits, both in initial training and in CPD. Ministers have challenged universities and local authorities to explore this further as part of work on a separate initial teacher training review.
The need for the early years workforce to work with other professionals across various children’s services is also detailed in the Executive’s response. Both the Review of the Early Years and Childcare Workforce and Getting it Right for Every Child have emphasised the importance of developing the children’s service workforce. The Executive is currently considering how this can be developed, including looking at a common core of skills, knowledge and competencies, and examining entry level qualifications, training and continuous professional training across professional groups.
Other issues
The Executive has responded to other issues highlighted such as regulation by the Care Commission, integrated children’s services planning and evaluation and research.
The Executive’s shares the committee’s vision of a Scotland which has an early years sector that gives all children the best possible start in life, that values and develops them and is aspired to by the rest of the world. Ministers are clear that the development of excellent early years provision will continue for many years to come.
Both the Education Committee report on the Early Years Inquiry and the Scottish Executive's Response are available online.