My presentation to the conference on Birth to Three Matters at Manchester Metropolitan University on Saturday 29th February 2020

1. Does ‘Birth
to Three
Matters’ still
matter?
Dr Julian Grenier
Headteacher, Sheringham Nursery School and
Children’s Centre
@juliangrenier

2. What I’m
thinking
about
• From dreary and fragmented services, to the
blooming of a thousand flowers
• 21st Century challenges: children facing
disadvantage
• 21st Century challenges: the workforce
• The experiences we offer two-year olds: child-
led and patterns of reciprocal activity
• Parents: the Nursery School and Children’s
Centre as a safe space in a hostile
neighbourhood
• Parents: connected babies in public spaces

3. 2003: services for babies and young
children that were dreary and fragmented
[video removed]

4. Birth to The Matters: the blooming of
thousands of flowers
Video removed. You can read about the
environment which I helped to develop at
Kate Greenaway Nursery School and
Children’s Centre on the blog I’m a teacher,
get me OUTSIDE here

5. Are things as good as
we want to believe?
• Smith et al (2009, p.4): on average, no
benefit to the children in England
involved in Early Learning for Two-Year
Olds.
• Scotland - (Woolfson and King, 2008,
p.61): “while the intervention group was
indeed progressing well between the two
time periods … its progress was not
significantly different from that of the
comparison group who did not attend
the intervention programme.”

6. • Smith et al (2009, p. 95) compare their findings with the
data from the evaluation of the Neighbourhood Nursery
Initiative: ‘provision quality for disadvantaged young
children has not improved significantly since the NNI data
was collected in 2004/5.’
• Could this still be the case?

7. Quality: Ofsted early
years inspection
outcomes 2015-2019

8. Quality: Manor Park in
Newham, East London
• Every early years setting is rated ‘Good’
by Ofsted
• But using the ITERS-3 quality audit we
found a very different picture
• ITERS-3 focuses on process quality and
it’s a robust research tool
• ITERS-3
17-18 overall score
Setting 1 1.6
Setting 2 3.5
Setting 3 3
Setting 4 3.9
Setting 5 3.1
Setting 6 3
Setting 7 3.9
Setting 8 3.5
Setting 9 3.3
Setting 10 2.6
Average 3.05

9. Training and qualifications in the early years
• Plowden Report (1967, p. 121):
nurseries, like hospitals, “require
large numbers of girls with similar
educational qualifications”;
• Moss (2006, p. 34) “an image that
is both gendered and assumes that
little or no education is necessary
to undertake the work.”
• Nutbrown Review (2012, p.9):
stereotype of “hair or care”.

10. Fundamental issues?
• We might challenge the gendering
and other language used in the past
about the workforce
• But do we have the same
fundamental issues around the
gender, pay, the quality of
qualifications and continuing
professional development?

11. Falling
proportion of
level 3
qualified staff
(NDNA report, 2019)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19
Proportion of Level 3 qualified staff
Level 3

12. Engaging with the challenges
of caring
• By the end of the first term … there
were signs that the group was
thinking and talking together in a
different way from the beginning.
This showed itself in four ways.
There were more spontaneous
contributions to the discussion with
practitioners adding detail and giving
illustrative examples of interactions
in a lively way.

13. Engaging with the challenges of caring
‘From my point of view, mum … was not fully engaging and fully wishing to
help us (settle in her child) … But the way we spoke about this case in the
group discussion, it helped me to see her from a different point of view and
say ‘maybe I was too critical?’ Maybe I should try a different way of
approaching her?’
‘My thinking about how I want to next approach this mum has changed.
[Parents had been unwell and the child was not attending]. Maybe we could
get them a get-well card and tell them that we are still thinking about them
and we are waiting for them to come back? To encourage them. Just to know
that we have not forgotten them.’

14. Engaging with the
challenges of caring
There was evidence of increased
curiosity, for example one of the
practitioners thought a child may be
being ‘babyfied’ (not allowed to
manage) which led to the facilitators
suggesting the possibility of the child
also being ‘adultfied’ (allowed too
much responsibility).’

15. The challenges of being an
early educator
Dalli et al (2011, p.18): ‘to
see the infant and toddler as
a learner still constitutes a
challenging paradigmatic
shift for many teachers.’

16. Initiation as well as
response
• Dalli et al (2011, p.4) summarise recent
international research as showing “that
adults have the key role in initiating
cognitively stimulating interactions that
are attuned to the child (Jaffe, 2007;
Warner, 2002). This is significant for
caregiving practice and shows that the
caregiving environment, and the nature
of the interactions within it, have the
potential to improve or limit learning.”

17. What style of
pedagogy?
• Smith (1999, p.86): a pedagogy that
integrates care and education - “a close
and nurturing adult-child relationship …
is necessary for intersubjectivity, which
allows the caregiver to judge how much
the child already knows and
understands, so that she can provide
appropriate scaffolding to extend
development.”

18. Intersubjectivity
Intersubjective relationships depend on
the child having agency, and the adult’s
commitment to giving more agency to
the child over time – as opposed to
models which only position the child as
the recipient of care.
• Smith (1999, p.87): “children’s ability to
handle intersubjective encounters
depends on: “reciprocal interaction
with … more competent members of
the culture, adults treating the child as
an agent and bent on ‘teaching’ him to
be more so” (Bruner, 1995, p.6)”.

19. Agency and autonomy
• “Learning and development are
facilitated by the participation of the
developing person in progressively
more complex patterns of reciprocal
activity with someone with whom that
person has developed a strong and
enduring emotional attachment and
when the balance of power gradually
shifts in favor of the developing
person.” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 60)

20. ‘Teaching’
agency and
autonomy
• Video removed: a parent talks about how her child with complex
needs became able to communicate, as a result of being taught how
to use a ‘core board’ to say what he wanted.

21. Reciprocal
activity:
interactive
book-
reading
• Video removed: a practitioner
shares a book with a small group
of 2-year olds. She encourages
them to talk about what they
notice in the story and pictures.
She encourages them to relate
this to their own experiences.

22. Parents: the Nursery School
and Children’s Centre as a
safe space in a hostile
neighbourhood
• We have to share with another family
because when I was pregnant nobody
wants children and we can’t afford...He’s
very active, needs space. I have to do
something with him. I can’t keep in him
in the house and if the weather is bad we
can’t go to the park.

23. ‘My son he didn't understand’
• ‘My son he didn't understand and my downstairs lady
used to complain loads to the council and I keep telling
her he don't understand. Now [he is attending the
nursery] it is much better and she is quiet. Hopefully they
will find us a new flat because we have a one bedroom
flat with two children. It is very small. I can't take both of
them outside because of my downstairs lady.’

24. Connected babies
in public spaces
• Video removed. A mother talks about why she brings her young baby
to the Children’s Centre. He used to be afraid of other babies. Now he
is more sociable. She used to be afraid of feeding him in public. Now
they are much more relaxed together when they are in the Centre.

25. Connected babies
in public spaces
• Video removed. A second mother talks about her young toddler loves
coming to the Children’s Centre and playing with others. She says that
she is very sociable and loves to play. She recommends that other
parents should also come to the Children’s Centre with their babies.