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This week

1. Did you know
2. Website of the Week
3. Under5s Download Centre
4. Date for your Diary
5. News
6. International News 
7. More Educational Sites
 
 

1. DID YOU KNOW

WORLD'S LARGEST CHILD CARE PROVIDER HITS TROUBLED WATERS

ABC Learning, the world's largest listed child care provider, became the latest casualty of the credit crunch last week when its share price plunged 43 percent as investors baulked at its high debt levels after a disappointing earnings announcement.

ABC's founder Eddie Groves, a one-time darling of the stock market, effectively lost control of the company as loans he took to buy shares were called in.

The company ended the week in a trading halt as potential buyers eyed a fire sale of ABC's assets and the market regulator investigated whether investors had been kept fully informed as the crisis unfolded.

ABC Learning owns the Busy Bees and Leapfrog nursery chains in the UK.
 

2. WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

StoryPlace

Children and their parents have for years enjoyed attending storytimes, checking out books and participating in a number of other educational, entertaining and participatory programs at the various locations of The Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County. StoryPlace, an interactive web site, came about to provide children with the virtual experience of going to the library and participating in the same types of activities the library offers. In the summer of 1999, a team of Children's Librarians and Specialists got together with in-house web developers to begin development on this exciting site. In the Spring of 2000, StoryPlace premiered with its first section, the Pre-School Library, completed. 

StoryPlace currently consists of two libraries, the Preschool Library and Elementary Library.

http://www.storyplace.org/preschool/preschool.asp?themeid=21
 
 

3. UNDER5S DOWNLOAD CENTRE

DON'T FORGET - you can find 24 different plans in the Download Centre and  all of our planning is available to download today. 

Don't miss the fantastic Let's Sign signing resources. 

Childminders - if you are struggling with Birth to Three, take a look at the Birth to Three Planning Guidance. 

http://cnb-host4.clickandbuild.com/cnb/shop/under5s?op=catalogue-categories-null

EARLY LEARNING FORUMS 

Join Us ! 

To discuss early years issues. To find support and advice on early years education. To relax and chat amongst friends. Come on in and have a look... 

http://www.earlylearningforums.co.uk 
 

4. DATE FOR YOUR DIARY

31 March 2008

Working with babies: Emotional, social and learning needs in daycare 
 
 

£225 million for play facilities 

Children and young people will get new adventure playgrounds and exciting and innovative play areas if their local authorities succeed in becoming part of the first year of the government's national £225 million play investment programme.

The government’s commitment to build or upgrade playgrounds and set up new supervised adventure playgrounds, was outlined in the Children’s Plan in December. Today, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls announced that sixty-five local authorities in England will be invited to bid to become play pathfinders.

Fifteen local authorities will be selected as play pathfinders from April 2008. They will each receive around £2 million capital funding plus significant revenue funding. These play pathfinders will work with children, young people and their communities to develop innovative play sites with challenging equipment and natural landscapes, which will give all children the opportunity to play actively outdoors. The play sites will also be accessible for disabled children. 
 
 
The bids should include plans for building a new staffed adventure playground, with indoor and outdoor facilities, specifically aimed at improving play opportunities for 8-13 year olds where they currently lack places to go and things to do, and often in disadvantaged areas. 
 
Any of the sixty-five local authorities who are unsuccessful in becoming a pathfinder, but who submit satisfactory bids, will be offered capital funding of approximately £1 million to develop public play areas, with the first allocations starting April 2008. This will support our aim of developing up to 3,500 public play areas by 2011. By 2010 all local authorities will have been offered capital funding and a chance to be a part of this agenda in partnership with their local communities. 
 
 
A second round of pathfinder bidding will take place autumn 2008 and this will be open for all local authorities to apply. A further fifteen play pathfinders will be selected so that by 2011 30 pathfinders in total will deliver 30 new adventure playgrounds. 
 
 
Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, said: 
 
“We know from parents and young people who took part in our Children’s Plan consultation that these facilities are something they want and will use. And as parents we all know that having the time, space and opportunity to play freely and safely is one of the defining characteristics of a good childhood. 
 
 
“Children need places which allow them to meet their friends and have fun - being able to burn off their energy in unstructured play is an important part of maintaining a healthy weight and life. That is why we’re making such a big commitment to invest in outdoor play facilities for children. 
 
“I want to encourage local authorities to work with children, young people and their communities to develop play facilities which will really make a difference in their local area. I’d urge them all to consider how this money can best help the children and young people in their boroughs. Nationally this will result in 30 new adventure playgrounds and up to 3,500 play areas being developed by 2010-11 – that is a lot of places to go and things to do for our children.”
 

Why don't we launch a nurseries parent partnership 

By Deepak Poddar 

Wouldn't it be great if we could devise a system which would allow mothers to spend potentially large amounts of time with their children at nursery - in an approach which would also enable mums to get back to work?

As somebody who believes very strongly in giving children the best possible environment in the crucial pre-school years, I think there’s a potential opportunity being missed. 

It’s one which if addressed imaginatively, and with full regard to every necessary safeguard, could make a dramatic difference to the lives of many parents – but, more importantly, would also hugely benefit the children. 

My idea – which although simple in general terms obviously requires a great deal of discussion before it could be put into practice – is to devise a system which would allow parents to work in nurseries, with their own children as well as with others, for at least part of the time when they’d otherwise be separated from them. 

This would have the double benefit of acting as a “half way house” on the way back to full time employment for mums – who might otherwise lose all connection with the regular working world for a lengthy period – while also greatly easing the strain of children parting from their parents for the first time: this way of managing things could potentially make a huge positive difference to all concerned. 

It might seem like a piece of untested “blue sky thinking”, but looking at the challenges which face government, councils and the Care Commission when it comes to satisfying modern demand for high quality nursery care, there really are some powerful arguments for bringing parents into the equation in a way never really contemplated seriously before. 

To manage this, mums able and willing to take part would clearly have to become nursery assistants, a job usually performed by young adults in their late teens. They’d have to be supervised by fully qualified nursery nurses, to an established ratio, and the mechanism for employing them would have to be both transparent and flexible enough to accommodate different needs. 

However while it might not be an easy system to set up from scratch, I believe it’s one which could deliver several very important spin-offs, and not least for the children. 

Under the scheme, a parent – who would, realistically, almost always be the mum – would work a number of set hours at the nursery.  The pay that would usually be earned as a nursery assistant would then be deducted from the fees normally charged for having a child at the nursery. 

The benefits would be considerable.  Mums who would otherwise be separated from normal working life for a considerable period would be able to keep up the momentum of a working routine without being separated from their children.  Parents who find nursery charges a drain on limited resources would be paying considerably less, and would also be gaining valuable life experience.  

Another benefit could be that an unknown but potentially significant number of parents becoming nursery assistants could go on to develop a full-time career as nursery nurses, pursuing all relevant qualifications – adding to the general pool of professional talent at a time when there’s clearly an established need. 

But perhaps best of all such a system would bring the family element into the nursery in a way which is currently unknown, potentially benefiting all of the children there. 

For many parents leaving their young child for any length of time is a wrench, and an environment in which it would be usual for some mums to be there at least some of the time would make the whole nursery experience more “normal” for all of the children. 

Not all parents would be able to take advantage of such a scheme, and of course not all would wish to, but in many ways it would create a useful bridge between family life and working life which would ultimately benefit all of the children. 

As with all new ideas, of course, there are major questions which have to be answered about exactly how to put such a system into practice. 

These centre on the key areas of qualification and supervision – what should the ratio be of nursery nurses to parent-nursery assistants to children?  The other big question is funding, and how it could effectively be administered.  Would such a system be difficult to regulate? 

As somebody whose working life resolves around the delivery of high quality private nursery care, meanwhile, I’d stress that the beneficiaries would be those using council-run nurseries – and perhaps particularly those in disadvantaged areas where potential sources of part-time work are very limited. 

So it isn’t a scheme with much direct relevance to my own business, but anyone who is seriously committed to quality nursery care is inevitably interested in the bigger picture. 

And I’m convinced the potential benefits mean that a proper debate on parent partnership schemes is well worth the effort. 

I don’t care whether any points raised are positive or negative, or even if somebody comes up with a similar but better idea, so long as the subject gets the sort of discussion I’m convinced it deserves. 

Naturally I am particularly interested in what fellow nursery care professionals have to say on the issue, and, of course, to find whether many parents would find it as useful as I think it would be.  

Deepak Poddar is managing director of Little Einstein’s nurseries across Scotland

6. INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Federal Budget Childcare Loses 

CANADA 

Canada's children barely got a mention in this year's Conservative budget which was noteworthy for  its dearth of recognition that Canadians need and value social programs.

In one of its few references to children the budget allocates $3 million for the No Child Without program, to provide free MedicAlert bracelets to children with serious medical conditions. "That's good but what families need is $1.2 billion in federal cash transfers to provinces and territories,
earmarked for early learning and child care programs" said Jody Dallaire Chairperson of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC). "It is time for a No Child Without Quality Child Care program".
 
Almost 800,000 children in Canada live in poverty. Canada lags behind its peer nations in early childhood education and child care with fewer than 20% of those 0-12 years old able to access regulated child care services. Indeed, OECD data show Canada to be last in terms of access to early learning and child care, a direct result of the fact that Canada places last in terms of
public spending on early childhood and child care programs as a percent of GDP.
 
The Federal Department of Finance has used OECD comparisons to call for more debt reduction but has not chosen to pay heed to the OECD's warnings about the consequences of ignoring early learning and child care nor to its recommendations to Canada calling for substantial increases in public spending.
 
Instead the Harper government has chosen to reduce tax revenues. If the two cuts to the GST, which cost the treasury $12 billion annually, had been invested in child care, the benefit to families would have been very significant. "It would have been enough to fund quality, universal child care
services for all young children in Canada", says Mab Oloman, Acting Coordinator, Code Blue for Child Care.
 
Another round in the game of fiscal choices - and children lose again.
 

Nearly Half of Preschoolers Receive Child Care from relatives 

USA

Relatives regularly provide child care to almost half of the more than 19 million preschoolers, according to tabulations released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Fathers and grandparents were the primary relative child care providers

The series of tables, Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2005, showed that among the 11.3 million children younger than 5 whose mothers were employed, 30 percent were cared for on a regular basis by a grandparent during their mother’s working hours. A slightly greater percentage spent time in an organized care facility, such as a day care center, nursery or preschool. Meanwhile, 25 percent received care from their fathers, 3 percent from siblings and 8 percent from other relatives when mothers went to work. 

The tables provide data on child care arrangements of preschoolers and grade-schoolers by various demographic characteristics of the employed mother. They also profile children who care for themselves on a regular basis and examine the size of weekly child care payments made by selected characteristics of the family.

Other highlights:

Preschoolers with employed black and Hispanic mothers were more likely to be cared for by their grandparents than their fathers. Among preschoolers of employed non-Hispanic white mothers, about the same percentage were cared for by their fathers and their grandparents (29 percent). 

Preschoolers whose mothers worked a night or evening shift were more likely to have their father as a child care provider than those whose mothers worked day shifts (39 percent and 18 percent, respectively). 

Eighty-nine percent of children younger than 5 with employed mothers were in a regular child care arrangement, compared with 63 percent of their grade school-age counterparts. 

Families with an employed mother and children younger than 15 paid an average of $107 per week for child care in 2005, up from $73 in 1985. 

Families with an employed mother and a child younger than 5 paid more, on average, per week for child care than those whose children were each 5 and older ($129 compared with $97). 

Families in poverty who paid for child care in 2005 spent a greater proportion of their monthly income on child care than did families at or above the poverty level (29 percent compared with 6 percent). 

Among all children, self-care was much more prevalent among middle school-age children than among those in elementary schools: 6 percent of ages 5 to 11 and 33 percent of ages 12 to 14 regularly cared for themselves
 
 

7. MORE EDUCATIONAL SITES 

For more educational sites visit 

Sites for Teachers 

http://www.sitesforteachers.com/perl/rankem.pcgi?id=under5s
 

Kind regards 
 

The Under5s Team 
Http://www.under5s.co.uk