Summer picnic - sample MP invitation letter

[MP name] [MP Address]

[Your name] [Your company name] [Your address]

Dear [MP formal title], Invitation to International Children’s Day Summer Picnic, Saturday 1st June As a professional in the Early Years sector, I would like to voice my dismay about the current Early Years debate. My colleagues and I want the public and parents of young children in particular to fully understand the true implications of the Government’s current plans. Instead of using this time to develop a strategy to educate the young of our country, they are using children as a political platform and insisting on pushing forward a policy decision that will damage the quality of the service for years to come.

Changing the staff-to-child ratios, allowing two graduate qualified staff to work with 4 babies or 6 two year olds - as a means to reducing the cost of childcare to parents - is nonsense. Tinkering with current ratios, which are admired across the world, puts both children and staff at risk. The Government’s view is that qualifications are the highest indicator of quality and that is sufficient. This is simply untrue, since ratios and qualifications, combined with good interactions and a quality curriculum, together create good quality. Removing one element is merely a trade-off; a point made by Head of OECD Andreas Scheider. The goal of more affordable childcare can only be achieved if the Government subsidises its true costs, as they do across Europe, allowing parents to pay a lower percentage.

Just consider our two year olds, at a time when there is most variation in their development. Will having a degree be enough to meet the needs of six of these small children at different ages and stages? No because having a degree does not give you extra hips and laps. Children as young as two need interaction, human contact and lots of conversation. This is particularly important for children learning to speak - especially those from poorer families, who need to hear a wider vocabulary at nursery to ensure they achieve the same level of words as their peers from professional families.

There is no support for such changes from staff, parents or academics.

The Government’s plans have raised a number of issues that I strongly believe we need to address:

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The Government wants more people in work, including mothers. However we need to make it clear that quality childcare is key to supporting these parents into work. This is turn will reduce child poverty, as work is the main driver to alleviate poverty.

Childcare is imperative to improving social mobility. The Deputy Prime Minister is keen to use early education in good quality nurseries as a key driver for social mobility. This will be targeted at two year-olds from disadvantaged areas. Elizabeth Truss, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Education and Childcare has said that only nurseries judged as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted will accept these children. However, Ofsted is now downgrading nurseries in poorer areas, despite their quality of care and education, leaving these disadvantaged children with nowhere to go.

The Government’s main concern seems to be reducing the cost of childcare for parents. There are many factors resulting in a high cost to parents of childcare under the current funding strategy. The most significant is that funding for free nursery places does not cover the actual cost of the service. There is also very little room to manoeuvre in a profit-driven market model, with turnover primarily spent on staff.

Staff-to-child ratios are a key indicator of quality of care. Reducing ratios will affect the quality of care, which is the pillar of the service. We need to emphasize that good quality care and education bring benefits to all children. Poor quality care will have a negligible impact.

The introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage went a long way to agreeing a framework for improvement in childcare. In many cases this was achieved with the support of local authority advisory teams acting as ‘critical friends’. However the Government is keen to dismantle all support services, and leave Ofsted as the sole improvement agency. This is a major concern, as Ofsted’s main responsibilities are registration and compliance. The embedding of improvement is most successful when done through critical friends rather than using inspections as agents of change.

Early Years staff are unwilling to remain downtrodden and ignored, as we contribute significantly to supporting the national economy and to the wellbeing of children. We need to highlight these issues and make our voices heard. To achieve this, we are planning to celebrate together on Saturday 1 st June - International Children's Day. It will now become a day of picnics and parties for parents and their children, hosted by childcare professionals right across the UK. We are honoured to have been given the responsibility of supporting parents to rear their children, and look forward to making June 1 st a great day for rejoicing and making the day 'all about the children'. We look forward to your response and support.

Yours faithfully,

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[Your name] [Your title] [Your company name and address]

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