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Provision for the under-fives: one council’s

response 1980-87

DOREEN HAMILTON

lMAR Y. Coordination of senices for under-fives is a major concern in eflorts to achieve a reasonable leavl of sewices with low l ezds of resources. This article relates the history of one attempt to develop such u coordinated approach in one

local authority - Imds . A specially appointed Council Committee led the way to breaking down many bun-iers between semlices, to improving lraining, and to

using scarce professional skills to best advantage.

Introduction

N April 1980, the Leeds City Council appointed a Nursery Committee to take charge of all public work for the under-fives in the city.

More specifically, the terms of reference of the Committee charged it to develop and provide council services for children under five, with the excep- tion of rising fives admitted to fulltime education and those in residential provision for children in care. The Committee was enjoined to consult with the Education and Social Services Committees, as appropriate, when under- taking this work. It furthermore had the responsibility of developing and providing voluntary facilities for children under statutory school age; register- ing private nurseries and child minders; promoting and developing facilities for younger (aged five to eight) school-age children outside school hours and during school holidays, especially for those children whose mothers were at work.

A decision was taken in 1980 only to have councillors on the main Committee, but to have an Advisory Committee to which all local organi- sations interested in the education and welfare of children under five would be asked to send representatives.

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The philosophy behind this particular way of promoting the interests of young children in Leeds was that these children and their families should have the attention and support of a main committee of the Council, but that rather than creating new officers and departments, the Nursery Committee should be able to call on the full resources of both the Education and Social Services Committees and consult with them on all questions in which they were concerned.

The immediate tasks of the Committee were to draw up plans whereby eventually every three to five year old child, whose parents wished for it, would have access to full or part time nursery education and care; and the same should be provided for all families with children under three years old, whose family needed such support. In particular, the Committee had in mind handicapped, disadvantaged or ‘at risk’ children, as well as children whose parents were at work, who needed help with the care and education of their children.

The plan included providing part time education nurseries in every primary school in the city, substantially increasing the number of social services’ day nurseries (later called family nursery centres), and also by en- couraging, supporting and working with the many voluntary organisations already dealing with the under-fives, such as the Pre-School Playgroups Association, childminders all over the city, Royal Society for Mentally Handi- capped Children and Adults (MENCAP), the National Society for the Preven- tion of Cruelty to Children, the Family Service Unit, and many others.

First tasks

In May 1980, there were only 450 full time places in day nurseries for an under-five population of 40,000 children in Leeds. Professionals were constantly finding it difficult to find suitable help and placements for children ‘at risk’, ‘failing to thrive’, or with specific disabilities and disadvantages, which needed immediate help. At the same time the officers in charge of day nurseries had ceased to record the names of parents applying for a place, but who had no urgent condition needing attention, because they could offer no hope of such a place during the pre-school period. Furthermore, provision of nursery places under the Education Department was very patchy, there being only three nursery schools in the Leeds area, and only 53 of the 203 schools taking five year olds into school having a nursery class or unit attached.

The Committee decided to tackle the provision of new places in three ways:

i. by using surplus space in existing primary schools to set up day nurser- ies;

ii, by providing full time places in education nurseries and extending the number of nurseries attached to primary schools;

iii. by initiating a new building programme for day nurseries in conjunc- tion with the Social Services Department.

An extensive review of the whole area of Leeds was undertaken, starting with the places where children had most need. Meetings on site either at a day nursery or a primary school always included advisors and building experts from both the Social Services and the Education Departments, as well as local persons and groups who were inierested, such as local playgroups and govern- ing bodies of schools.

Recommendations for day nursery places, education nursery places, with or without support for fulltime attendance of under five year olds, or both, were fully documented so that members of the Nursery Committee could make an informed choice and defend that choice in Council or to the general public. These decisions were taken with a consensus which covered all political parties on the Council.

The success of this review and indeed of the whole nursery programme was helped by the keen and active participation of two advisors, one in the Education Department and one in the Social Services Department. Both these women had long experience of work for the under-fives, as well as vision and great enthusiasm. The Chairwoman of the Nursery Committee had a determination to use the resources and enlist the help of both the two depart- ments and received enthusiastic support for her undertaking from very many officers in both Departments. The Committee did not, therefore, experience the inter-departmental rivalry which has hampered the smooth development of nursery work in so many authorities.

Finance

A Nursery Committee has no official status in local government: it has no financial status so far as central government and the District Auditor are concerned. The functions of the Nursery Committee, in other councils than Leeds, would be undertaken by parts of either the Social Services or Educ- ation Committees. Therefore in Leeds all expenditure was put through one of these major committees.

Nevertheless, the Nursery Committee had both a capital programme and a revenue budget agreed by the Council. The Chairwoman of the Nursery Committee put in her bids for increases and improvements and fought for them, in the same way as other Chairs. Once that budget had passed through the Council, no-one tampered with it and the only task was to see it speedily and economically spent in accordance with the current programme. (Readers

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with a knowledge of local government practices will undersrand that this is no easy task, as often one has to work very hard simply to stand still and avoid slippage.)

It is not easy to trace the full cost of nursery work in Leeds. The cost of places in family nursery centres would be possible to estimate, as there was a heading ‘day nurseries’ in the Social Services’ budget; but it was far more difficult to understand how much a full-day-equivalent place cost in an ‘edu- cation’ nursery, as much of the administration, maintenance and capitation was hidden in the budget of the school to which the unit was attached.

In the years 1980-1987, the number of places in family nursery centres was increased from 450 to 877 and the number of full time equivalent places in education nurseries from 1585 - 3091; while places in nursery schools remained at 165. The revenue implications of these increases was shown in the nursery budget year by year. The other elements shown in the revenue budget were the improvements to be introduced in the coming year, for all the work for the under-fives. The cost of improvements and increases in any one year, at this period, ranged from E800,000 to E1,000,000.

A typical budget for one year might show: Increased places in family nursery centres E450,000

12 lunch care assistants E30,000 Increased places in education nurseries l225,000

Childminders’ support staff l l0 ,000 Sponsored childminding l4,500 Increased grants to voluntary bodies

such as PPA, MENCAP, FSU etc E60,000 Six peripatetic nursery nurses E36,000 Latch-key schemes E48,000

E863,5 00 All additional money spent by the Council on the under-fives was handled in this way; after one year it was incorporated into the basic spending and further bids needed to be made for extensions and improvements.

Education or care?

Nursery Committee members visiting day nurseries and education nurseries in 1980 and 1981, were quickly made aware that the two departments laid very different stresses on important aspects of child care. The day nursery staff were keenly aware of the social implications of their work, the reper- cussions it had on families, and the need to monitor the child’s health, but in some cases little provision was made for developing the intellectual interests and capabilities of the children. By 1981, a decision was made to introduce qualified teachers into the day nurseries, but it was not until early 1983 that

the first three were appointed. There was a waiting period while this whole strategy was planned, explained, prepared for, and, finally, financed. Tbis preparatory period allowed such a thorough diffusion with all concerned that, within a few months of the teachers starting work, complaints were vociferous if the first nine nurseries concerned did not get their three sessions per week of teacher’s time.

In contrast to the day nurseries, Council members found that the education nurseries, which were dealing only with children from three to five years old and usually offering only half a day, gave a wide range of intellec- tual and cultural opportunities. Care had to be taken, in some instances, where programmes were too formal and academic, and did not allow suffi- cient time for true nursery work.

Because of the urgent need of full day places in 1980, and the difficulty of building and adapting buildings for day nurseries in a short space of time, it was decided to offer 300 places in education nurseries for children to have a meal and extended hours.

This plan, like chat of the introduction of teachers into day nurseries, took some time to mature. There was an extensive series of meetings with head teachers: some heads welcomed the opportunity to do something which they had long felt was necessary; some gave the idea a guarded welcome, but foresaw many difficulties ahead (and how right they were!); while still others, who had little training in, or experience of, nursery work, asked us bluntly if we wanted them to become ‘just child minders’.

The nursery advisors planned full day places in education nurseries only where the nursery teacher had had training in ‘early years’ education. This was not initially the case for all our nurseries. Physical conditions for a restful and happy dinner hour were also arranged, with the nursery children eating their meal away from the hurly-burly of the rest of the school. A suitable secluded playground was available to them and special staff were recruited to help serve the dinner and mind the children.

By 1984, the Leeds Nursery Committee felt it was well on its way to providing education and care for all the under-fives in its establishments, through the process of changing buildings, provision for extra staff, and through constant discussion, in-service training and insistence on proper standards.

Parents are essential

This is such an obvious dictum that one wonders how experts, such as teach- ers, educational psychologists and officers in charge, could totally ignore parents, or regard them simply as a physical necessity, to produce the babies, who would henceforth be guided and taught by experts. In 1980, Leeds

PROVISION FOR T H E UNDER-FIVES

Education Department had only recently abolished the last school notice saying ‘No parents beyond this point’.

On the Nursery Committee we set out to remedy the situation and to eradicate this long held feeling that the value of parents was merely to mind their children when it was not convenient for professionals to do so. Our first action was to see that parents were welcomed in all nursery establishments. This culminated in changing the ground plan of new nursery units for education nurseries in 1985 so that, in future, there would be an area in each nursery where parents could wait comfortably for their children and where they could see and talk to teachers.

The second way of changing the role of parents, which was in accord with the move all over England, was to welcome parents into school to help with their children’s education. The concept of ‘shared reading’ schemes in primary school is a good example of this new trend. We encouraged similar innovations in our nurseries, though it must be emphasised that reading as such is not taught.

We then actively consulted parents about what they wanted for their children. This was activated in many family nursery centres by having a ‘Parents’ Committee’, several years before the present Government formally asked parents to join the governing bodies of schools.

The fourth strategy was to give our staff a great deal of freedom to work with parents in the different settings in which they found themselves; this approach to parents became a theme which constantly recurred in all aspects of in-service and other forms of service training.

Finally, we encouraged the heads of schools and nurseries to help parents use Council premises for their own education and recreation, so that parents began to see Council facilities as something for both themselves and their children. This was followed in areas where there was a significant number of families from distinct ethnic groups. Here we often relied on parents who were bi-lingual to help in the education nurseries and family nursery centres. The many varied aspects of work done by such parents was of immense value to parents, children and teachers alike. At the same time the Further Education Department put on many classes to help those who had no English to learn it and to use their growing knowledge.

Training the carers and educators

In 1980, there was already a shortage of properly trained nursery teachers. Teacher-training establishments were running down their Early Learning courses, aimed at training teachers for the three to eight year old age range. As the years passed and the Leeds Authority increased the number of such teachers it employed, it became increasingly difficult to find places. The

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difficulties were pointed out to the Department of Education (DES), with no result. We had, therefore, to see what we could do within our own resources.

Discussions were held with Leeds University Department of Education and Bretton Hall College of Higher Education and also with neighbouring education authorities about mounting local courses which would give in-depth tuition and experience to teachers who would be in charge of new nursery classes. These would also be available to senior staff at schools which might have a large nursery intake for the first time. Both establishments responded positively. The Institute of Education provided two-term one day a week courses for head teachers and nursery teachers. Bretton Hall College started a summer term full time course on the education of under-fives. This was, in some ways, both a refresher course and also a conversion course.

However, the small number of places on each course did not keep pace with the expansion of nurseries in Leeds; therefore, Bretton College was asked to provide an additional course for Leeds' teachers. With this third course becoming available, throughout the period 1980-87, Leeds was able to staff its nurseries with teachers who had at least an interest in nursery education and had had the opportunity to observe good practice and to study some of the problems which arise with the under-fives. However, we con- tinued to feel that we lived on the edge of a precipice and continued to appeal to the DES acd the Government to encourage, rather than discourage, Early Years training for teachers. I note that in the summer of 1988, this crisis has become acute for the whole of the country. It arises partly from an apparent belief that anyone can teach nursery age children, but practicing teachers, regardless of the age they were trained for, do not consider the management of a class of three year olds an easy option.

The need for trained nursery nurses, during this period of expansion. was as great as that for trained nursery teachers. In 1980, there were many women in Leeds who had trained as NNEBs but had never managed to get jobs in that field. The reservoir of these previously trained nurses, together with the newly trained students coming from the NNEB Course situated at Thomas Danby College, the trained personnel coming to settle in Leeds and the influx of trained and experienced staff from neighbouring towns who were either closing down their nurseries or where the position was static, filled all posts easily for three or four years. From 1984-5 the Nursery Committee Chairwoman asked for assessments from all departments of the number of new posts needing to be filled in the coming year and continued to press Thomas Danby College to take more students. In 1987, because of the grow- ing need for trained staff, the Leeds Authority established a course for B Tech in Nursery Nursing. We shall watch with interest the progress of this course.

Leeds, together with other authorities, particularly lacked trained staff from the ethnic minorities. There were nurseries with a substantial number of

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black children, where there was not even one nurse or teacher from a similar background to make them feel at home, and the aim of having at least one member of staff from the relevant ethnic minority population in each nursery was not fulfilled. Nonetheless, in-service training was given to all nursery staff to meet the needs of a multicultural society and to carry out the Leeds Council’s equal opportunities policy.

Nursery staff worked closely with the Primary Schools Language Development Team and, in 1983, the Nursery Committee agreed to create six additional nursery nurse posts, attached to the English as a Second Language (ESL) Team, to be allocated on a sessional basis to the nurseries. They were not to work solely with language, but were there to increase the adult/ child ratio allowing all staff, with their help, to develop the children’s language. It became a principle throughout the following years that, as nursery staff received extra training in specialised aspects of their work and then returned to classes and groups, they did not just carry on the work themselves, but remained ordinary members of the team, able to advise, but also releasing other members of the team to do the work. One other area where this was especially true was in the development of ‘home visiting’. From 1983 and onwards, there was an increasing amount of home visiting from some of the nurseries. It was always initiated by specially trained staff, but they were never the only members of the team to do so.

The Nursery Committee supported a regular programme of in-service training, partly through the Social Services Department and partly through the Education Department. The sessions were directed to all the problems with which the Committee was involved: working with parents and working with disadvantaged children; the changing curriculum; the physical and health aspects of little children, etc. Some of the courses were open to both teachers and nursery nurses, but we never succeeded in convincing the nursery nurses in education nurseries that they were sufficiently valued, and we never reached all the personnel who wished to undertake such training.

Another aspect of training was the very wide freedom given to teachers and to senior staff in nursery centres to experiment with initiatives which they felt would help their work. Such freedom was only possible because of the close and constant relationships between advisors and staff, which guaranteed safety for the children - a matter always of prime concern to the Committee. Examples of these initiatives were residential camping weekends with children and mothers from family nursery centres and - greatly daring - similar weekends involving fathers as well, encouraging parents to take an active part in the curriculum in education nurseries.

Throughout the period 1980-1987, the Nursery Committee insisted that only trained staff should be employed in nurseries, whether attached to the Education or Social Services Committees. This policy was not only in

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DOREEN HAMILI‘ON

deference to the trades unions, but also in recognition of the facts that nursery work was truly education of the most important kind, and that more and more demands were being made on trained nursery staff - for instance, they were being asked to deal with the complicated legal and moral aspects of child abuse; they were being asked to supervise the work of untrained helpers, such as parents and school-children; they were also being asked to explain their work to an increasing number of trainees from other professions.

However, this insistence on trained staff left many of those with consid- erable commitment and/or experience in child care without job opportunities - a wasted resource. The Committee investigated areas of work where those with experience with play-groups and other under-fives’ organisations, NNEB trainees in the holidays, women from other cultures, whose training and experience were not recognised by the British authorities and others, could join in the work and get paid for it. Such areas were the care of nursery chil- dren during school dinner hours, the care of children on holiday schemes, and the servicing of community nurseries and so-called ‘creches’ attached to further education establishments and sports and leisure complexes. Such placements were always under the supervision of trained staff and were care- fully monitored. Some places were filled by the Manpower Services Training Schemes, and the Committee co-operated with these and tried to ensure that the training was effective and long lasting.

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Working with and listening to the voluntary sector From the outset, the Leeds Nursery Committee was aware that there were many organisations in Leeds offering help, advice and support to families with young children. By 1982-3, when we published a book of names, addresses and facts to help families, called Under Five in Leeds, we had identified 51 such voluntary organisations and we were able to publicise their names and addresses. In addition, we wanted to work even more closely with some departments of the National Health Service and we were legally responsible for registering private nurseries, childminders and playgroups and for over- seeing other situations where people received money for the education and care of children under five.

The Nursery Committee wanted every child in Leeds to have all the opportunities he or she could benefit from and, to this end, we encouraged all these people and bodies to continue or to adopt good practices. We wished to run a flexible service for children and many organisations were in a better position than the Council to give detailed advice and support.

We recognised that a good childminder living in the next street might be of much greater use to a family than a nursery a mile away and that, in any case, where a child a few months old needed to be minded, a childminder was

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usually preferred. Therefore the Council services to childminders and the families which used them were steadily increased during these years; the Council-paid workers who registered minders were increased from one to six, so that by the end of the period they were able to offer families a truly up-to- date list of minders, together with an insight into which minders might suit a prospective family. They could counsel minders before the start of this very demanding professional job and, where appropriate, offer council sponsored places to needy families. They helped childminders to meet together for discussions and training sessions. It is not just chance that one of the first Chairwomen of the National Childminders’ Association came from Leeds.

Pre-school playgroups in Leeds were also given an increasing support both financially and morally. They were helped to acquire and run a playbus; to offer council-sponsored half cost prices; to increase and enhance their training for playgroup leaders and helpers; and to develop the numerous mother and toddler groups, which sprang up in the 1980s and which are a life- line to many lonely mothers.

Other groups were able to run special services which the Council helped, advised, and sometimes partly financed. For instance, the Portage Scheme started from the MENCAP nursery, with the support of professionals from the Regional Child Development Centre at St James’s Hospital, as well as from the Council; and from that point it was extended and adopted through the Council’s own establishments. This was just one instance of the growing co-operation between MENCAP and Leeds City Council, which led to some nursery age children having some sessions at MENCAP and others at their neighbourhood nurseries.

The Family Service Unit (FSU) experimented successfully with parent and baby music and dance sessions. Close links with the FSU led to Leeds’ nurseries offering accommodation and support to the Specialist Instructor for Dance Sessions in Leeds nurseries. Deaf children in a Council nursery had a chance to learn sign language at an early age, long before it became widely accepted as beneficial to all school children and adults. There are numerous other examples of the wide diversity of measures facilitated by this cooper- ation.

The Nursery Committee also recognised that listening was part of its task. Though there were too many organisations for them to be represented on the main Committee, in 1980 an Advisory Committee was set up, to meet not less than four times a year, and to offer participation to all interested. This Committee was relatively inactive for the first two years but once the intimidating effect of big Council committee rooms was recognised and offset, it became a very lively forum. The Health Service, which regularly sent a senior official to both talk and listen, found it a good audience for ciirrent drives on innoculation, diet, hygiene, etc. Thanks to the regular atter.dance

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from Pre-School Playgroups Association, the Community Relations Commit- tee, the National Childbirth Trust, the National Association of Nursery and Family Care, Local Government Officers, National Association of Nursery Nurses (NNEB) group, Health Visitors, the Department of Health and Social Security, MENCAP, Thomas Danby College, .and many other organisations, the Nursery Committee was able to learn what was worrying both profession- als and parents in the nursery world of Leeds.

It was also able to draw up guidelines to put to the Nursery Committee on such widely separated aspects of the work on diet for the under-fives, the difficulties of men who wished to work in this field, the place of teenagers in pre-five groups and the advice and training they should receive from teachers and supervisors before they started their work.

Special children All children are special and each needs individual attention; that is why teach- ers who insist on having a uniform group are begging the question - there is no such thing as a uniform group. In all our nurseries, the Committee tried to provide access to a wealth of equipment and diverse opportunities and a free- dom to choose between these so that all children could build on their strengths and reform their weaknesses. Nevertheless, there are still some children who need very special attention and equipment, if they are to reach their full potential and become of value to society at large.

Obvious cases of such needs are children with a definite physical dis- advantage, such as blindness or deafness; children who do not speak the language being used in the classroom; children with physical differences, such as physically handicapped children or those with Downs Syndrome; very slow learners and those with acute emotional problems. The Nursery Committee had the duty, imposed on all education authorities, of providing suitable education for disadvantaged children from the age of two years.

The Committee had to consider two divergent bodies of opinion in making its policy for special children. The first advocated offering the best equipment and specialist teachers to children in segregated small groups such as were found in the nursery class of a special school; this opinion was promulgated by some of the most devoted and best trained teachers and carers. The second opinion advocated helping all children to play together, and often to play within the bounds of their local community, at the same time giving them part time professional help and equipment as necessary.

The Committee opted for integrating nursery children in their neigh- bourhood nurseries wherever possible. It believed the experience of happy interesting play could override many individual difficulties; that there was much meaningful communication without words; that playing together was

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the happiest way of starting to learn a new language; that physical handicaps could often be overcome by the intense desire to join in a game; that happi- ness and laughter helps learning and emotional problems; and that learning about other people’s difficulties makes children more aware. We did not succeed in convincing all our staff of the rightness of this second policy, but we started to put it into practice.

During the seven years in question, the Committee funded 12 extra peripatetic nursery nurses to help disadvantaged children in ordinary nur- series. These staff were moved on to another nursery, when the need dimin- ished; there were also twelve staff, under Section 11, attached to the ESL Team, to be deployed in a similar way. Later in these years, children had their needs and their entitlement to additional help spelt out in detail when they were ‘statemented’ - a future trend anticipated by the Leeds Committee.

Much has been written about the difficulties of children of Asian and West Indian origin in the British education system today. Leeds and Leeds’ nurseries were, perhaps, in the middle stream so far as both difficulties and provision were concerned. We did our very best to help and we did so in a variety of ways by encouraging parents, by providing extra staff and by supporting true independent community nurseries, through finding extra trained staff to work with them. There are, however, other ethnic and cultural groups no less in need of help about whom the media has been far more silent. Such a group is that of the ‘travelling’ people, which often includes Romanies, Irish tinkers and other specific sub-groups. With these families the Council committees often had an additional problem; the children were not in schools and indeed resisted school attendance, seeing it as irrelevant and unnecessary.

The Leeds Nursery Committee believed these children needed nursery education as much as, or sometimes more than, other groups. It set out to get a teacher and nursery nurse to work together with the young traveller chil- dren on the camp sites and to get a properly equipped bus so that they could have access to the standard equipment of water, sand, paint, crayons, toys and books. Such was the enthusiasm of the staff appointed that they worked for more than a year from their own car, even through a colder than normal winter, while various delays and obstructions held up the provision of a bus. Finally, however, in 1984, the bus was ready and able to visit four or five sites per week. After initial difficulties, such as disbelief, from the adult travellers in the need for children to ‘play’, the nursery bus was so far accepted as to be overfull nearly every day. All the evidence shows that where travellers’ chil- dren are truly accepted without racial bias, they are enthusiastic attenders within the limits of their essential ‘moving on’ life; parents soon began to understand the advantages of education and to appreciate the limited amount of help we could give them from the ‘nursery bus’, and sometimes to help their children move on to school.

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The Nursery Committee reached out to help other neglected groups as well. It has already been mentioned that through MENCAP, and the devotion of some mothers of disadvantaged children, we were able, through the Portage Scheme, to help parents to work with their disabled children from a few months old. This early start showed parents that they themselves were the key to their children's learning; it much improved the prospect of the children concerned. The same was true of home visiting where extra staff were employed, so that someone in a nursery could visit pupils before admission to nursery and help explain both the benefits of nursery education and what was expected of parents whose children were in the nursery.

In many aspects of this work, in supporting the Portage Scheme, in teaching 'sign language' to deaf children in nurseries, in encouraging home visiting, the Nursery Committee was well ahead of other council committees.

The extension and improvement of the nursery service

During the years 1980-87, there was a general demand from the public in Leeds for an extension of the nursery service. Parents of every political persu- asion wanted places for their children in nursery classes. An overall review of every area was undertaken, culminating, in 1987, with a plan for every primary school, however small and isolated, to have nursery provision by the end of the 1990s.

All political parties agreed that families with outstanding difficulties, whether physical, medical, mental, social or educational, should have a first call on limited resources. The Catholic Diocesan Educational Authority was always included in any area review and readily agreed that all nurseries should take priority cases, regardless of creed, and that children should be allotted places, even if they would not be continuing in the same school.

When the Committee reviewed an area, the premises of all schools, the availability and suitability of existing staff, the provision of similar places nearby, including excellent playgroup provision, were all taken into account. We insisted on suitable access to a separate nursery playground with some grassy area, proper accommodation for large toys, staff who had understanding of, training in and sympathy with nursery education and, in the absence of some or all of these conditions, nurseries were postponed.

Because the United IGngdom, unlike most advanced European countries, does not provide a nursery service for working parents, areas like Leeds have always had an overwhelming demand for full time places in nurseries for little children. The Nursery Committee tried to meet this demand by extending the number of places in family nursery centres and, indeed, nearly doubled the number of places in these years. It was also aware that one of the most traumatic times, for single working parents, or for

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families where both parents are working, is when their child passes fiom full time nursery to school. Nursery provided a flexible drop off and pick up time from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm; on the other hand, school needs a rigid attendance at 8.45 to 9.00 am and a pick-up between 3.00 and 3.30 pm.

T o fill this gap between nursery care and school, in Leeds we developed ‘latch-key clubs’ attached to family nursery centres. There, in the well- equipped community room, children between the ages of five to eight years old could be left with responsible carers from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm. The carers usually served several primary schools in the area; they would receive children at the family nursery centre, take them to school and pick them up at the appropriate time and take them back to the nursery. There they were given a snack and allowed to relax and play until fetched by their parents. This system offered a chance of work with children to some women not fully quali- fied as teachers or NNEBs (nursery nurses), under the guidance of our very capable, qualified, enterprising officers in charge at the family nursery centres who seemed to thrive as more responsibility was thrust upon them. An addi- tional advantage for some children was that at the stressful moment of‘ start- ing ‘real school’, some of them were able to return to the cosy, known world of the nursery where they knew everybody. A holiday programme is also run in connection with the latch-key clubs, which makes it possible for many parents (particularly women) to continue their paid work over the summer holiday period. Of course, places in the clubs are always over subscribed.

Community rooms were built on to nearly all the family nursery centres during this time and were always included in the new built nurseries. They made possible the latch-key clubs, but during term time would have been empty most of the day were it not that they proved wonderful rendezvous for childminders, social services meetings, further education classes, parents’ groups arid many other worthwhile projects. They did, indeed, upgrade our nurseries. It is, perhaps, because they were so successful that the Nursery Committee did not fully explore the possibility of using primary schools with nursery classes for extended days to help working parents.

Vexed questions

Many questions the Nursery Committee had to cope with were never resolved or never fully resolved. We can mention only a few. There were many reasons for the great support the Committee received from 1980-87, but relatively few of the supporters really valued or understood true nursery education. We, on the Committee, meant the provision of an environment where little chil- dren could play and experiment in safety and with freedom, under the super- vision of trained personnel, who provide an appropriate curriculum. The introduction of these very young children into a main school programme,

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however sympathetically handled, inevitably put them and their families in a more formal setting where both children and parents could feel they were fail- ing the school.

Nursery personnel maintain a regime which readily admits children at different times of the day, as the many accidents and problems which arise in families with very young children are fully appreciated. The curriculum is also handled so that while no child is held back from learning, no child is allowed to feel she or he has failed. Those who do show strengths in academic work are not praised above others who have a different bent.

A certain amount of toilet training is often necessary in the nursery situ- ation; this makes it essential for children to have immediate access to suitably sized and maintained toilet and washing facilities; in such a situation they can be expected, very quickly, to command and regulate their bodily functions expertly.

An easy use of language and a willingness to communicate is an essential aim at this stage of education and, therefore, a generous staffing policy must be maintained. The Committee always knew it was not generous enough, but had to be constrained by financial considerations.

English law did not allow the Committee to charge for education in nursery classes attached to schools, even had we wished to do so. But by a majority, the Committee decided to make a small minimum charge for places in family nursery centres. This was on a sliding scale according to income, but did include families on social security benefit. When full day places were intro- duced into education nurseries we charged for the school meal then offered to the children because we wished families to choose the type of nursery accord- ing to what it offered for the needs of the child and parents, and not for which was the cheapest. However, the Committee recognised the many arguments in favour of free places and with the falling value of child benefits over the years, towards the end of this period the policy was changed to allow free meals and free places in education nurseries and family nursery centres to those on supplementary benefit.

There were, and are, two schools of thought about playgroups. The ‘playgroup people’ often thought them superior to nurseries run by pro- fessionals; but another group regarded them as a poor, second class educational device run by charitable volunteers and thought they should be superceded by ‘proper nurseries’ as soon as finance allowed. The Nursery Committee valued the many virtues of playgroups, such as a higher staffing ratio than we could ever afford in Council run establishments, and an oppor- tunity for parents to find friends, employment and encouragement at a period in their lives which can be lonely, depressing, and can contribute to low self- esteem. However, it believed that there were many children who needed professional advice, support, contacts and also full day care and these could

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be supplied only by the City Council. We wanted both forms of provision, so we tried to help the playgroups maintain high standards and, at the same time, extend Council nursery provision. In the few instances where play- groups met in family nursery centres or education premises there was an exchange of ideas and co-operation which benefitted all concerned. It is only by such ventures that the mistrust and lack of understanding of the similarit- ies and differences in the types of pre-school provision can be overcome.

This article is written so that the many questions which arise about nursery education can be discussed again and again, as they need to be. The greatest question is always: what type of education should we offer to children under five? We also need to ask: should such education be extended to child- ren under six or seven years of age, as it is in so many advanced industrial countries? Between 1980 and 1987, Leeds offered a solution which was neces- sarily circumscribed by conditions prevailing in England during those years.

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