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Annual Report 2019 | Childcare Stories
Childcare was clearly identified as priority area in the course of Glasgow Community Plan consultation. Comments on the single action to improve childcare strongly identified three key issues from respondents: Cost, Increased or Expanded Provision, and Flexibility. In particular the high cost of childcare as an issue of concern with many identifying it as a barrier or disincentive to work and access training and learning opportunities. Other areas emerging from the consultation included greater outdoor learning and innovative provision and also investigating opportunities to co establish with care homes. There was strong feeling across the partnership that if organisations worked collectively and played to their respective strengths that progress could be made and Childcare could be a key enabler to Inclusive Growth in the city.
The partnership whilst considering this feedback acknowledged that the Scottish Government commitment to increase the number of free hours of Early Years provision to 1140 hours by August 2020 (from 600 hours) offered significant opportunities however it could only truly be optimised through innovative and collaborative working across a wide range of organisations including the Council, Skills Development Scotland, Third Sector, Health and Social Care and Colleges to name but a few. The partnership were also mindful that the extended Early Years provision as well as providing better outcomes for children had the potential to act as enabler for inclusive growth.
Over the last year there has been a wide array of activities to deliver on our ambitions in this area. Here are just some of these:
Early Year Rollout
From August 2020 every local authority in Scotland must provide almost double the existing fully funded early learning and childcare for all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds with parents and carers across the city entitled to 1140 hours in either a council or partnership nursery in the city.
Mindful of the desire to address cost and deliver expanded provision, for the last 18 months the council along with existing partner providers has been working to phase in the additional hours for families - with a number of council nurseries already able to offer families almost double what they have been getting. As of August 2019 there will be 76 council settings providing 1140 funded hours, and partner nurseries will have increased their provision by 10%.
This is a major undertaking for the council and partner providers with a number of changes - including building new nurseries - being introduced ahead of the August 2020 deadline in order to meet demand. The expansion of Early Learning and Childcare is a priority for the city and it is widely acknowledged the council cannot fulfil these ambitions in isolation, but instead a truly collaborative effort across the partnership is required.
The attached video provides more of insight into the Early Year rollout in the city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyecCzShjNU
Increased Flexibility
Increased flexibility and operating hours which better reflect the requirements of parents and carers has also been an area that the partnership wanted to develop. The partnership received a strong message during consultation around a wish for flexibility and longer opening hours to meet the needs of family and working lives.
One example of this is an increase in the number of nurseries operating on a year round basis. An example of the growth in this area can be seen in council nurseries where in August 2017 there were 39 nurseries providing a year round service and this was projected to grow to 66 by August 2019.
Careers in Early Learning and Childcare
Increased flexibility and hours means employing new child development officers and support staff, as well as existing staff moving to new working patterns to accommodate the extended hours of provision, and a greater number working on 52 week contracts. The required increase in the region of 1,150 Early Leaning and Childcare posts in the city (spread across council and partner settings) offers significant employment and career development opportunities for Glasgow. The partnership is keen to fully embrace this required growth and have undertaken significant collaborative work to prepare Glaswegians to take up these opportunities. Partners involved include Skills Development Scotland, Colleges, Third Sector Interface and the council. In order for Early Learning and Childcare to meet the required growth it needs to attract interest in the city from a diverse range of backgrounds. Skills Development Scotland hosted an event in January 2019 to promote career opportunities
As part of the process to encourage interest in Early Learning and Childcare both a city and national recruitment campaign has been implemented
As part of this campaign a video was produced encouraging interest in careers in the sector
Early Citywide offer of 900 hours of nursery placement
As part of the phasing in for the expansion plans, the council announced a universal offer to parents and carers in February this year that would come into force at the beginning of the new term in August 2019.
This offer was for all Glasgow families with earnings up to £45,000 to be given the opportunity to access 900 hours fully funded hours for their 3 and 4 year olds and eligible 2 year olds across the city. Families who attend partner providers that have signed up to the new offer will also benefit.
Early indications reveal that nearly 10,000 Glasgow families will benefit in the short term a year ahead of the 1140 hours roll out. This is a significant development in the context of addressing the cost of Childcare.
As Councillor Chris Cunningham, City Convener for Education, Skills & Early Years says: "This offer means more fully funded early learning and childcare hours for thousands of our families and will be a big help towards the monthly bills in a time when everyone is feeling the pinch.
"We predict that from August 2019 as many as 10,000 Glasgow families will benefit with more access to a quality, flexible and affordable early years' service."
Positive Impact for Families
The increase in hours is having a very positive effect for a number of families - this includes a reduction in childcare costs, increased flexibility to allow parents to access additional hours at work, and the opportunity to access learning opportunities and full time further education.
Michelle Bonner, owner and manager of My Little Fishes Nursery in Drumchapel is one partner provider whose families are already reaping the benefits of the 900 hours offer.
Since the introduction last month, Michelle is already able to report that her families are now saving the equivalent of two days childcare costs.
She said: "Just the other day one of our mums told me that she has now been able to increase her hours at work by two days because of the increase in funded hours.
"This will have a big impact on some of our families as they will now be able to redirect the saving into other areas of the family budget."
Children's Learning
But it's not only the parents and carers who will see the long term benefit of the increase in funded hours.
This national policy is also about the impact on children's learning and importantly the consistency of learning by interacting with other children across the majority of the week in a conducive learning environment.
As Michelle explained: "We make sure that our children are able to learn in many different ways.
"One of our very successful projects is working with the local care home - the children visit the residents in the home regularly and we invite the ladies and gentlemen to be our guests at the nursery as often as they wish - everyone loves these visits.
"If the children are in more days then they are not missing out on these special occasions and building better relationships with staff over a longer period of time.
"It will also prepare our children for the transition to primary school."
"We can't wait to be able to offer the 1140 hours to our families and we have everything in place to deliver this."
Innovation around the provision of Early Learning as outlined above is something the partnership were really keen to deliver as reflected in some of the key messages received during the consultation phase.
Some headline statistics on the Early Years rollout
- 110 GCC Settings and over 120 Funded Providers
- Approximately 12,000 funded childrenat any one time
- Over 1,500 staffworking in GCC ELC settings increasing to 2,000 by full roll out
Outdoor Learning
Outdoor learning was a key theme raised during the Glasgow Community Plan consultation phase. GCC has been working on three outdoor collaborative ELC projects alongside the local third sector organisations (Castlemilk, Drumchapel and the East End), with the Castlemilk project now registered as a fully outdoor nursery and the other two set to follow by Spring 2020. This will double the number of fully outdoor settings in the city to six - a significant number in Scotland's most urban authority.
In addition, we are working to support expanded outdoor developments in a further 15 GCC settings, including registering up to an additional 20% capacity in the outdoor space. Four of these nurseries (Rowena Nursery, Jimmy Dunnachie Family Learning Centre, Silverdale Nursery and Castlemilk Day Nursery) are already embarking on this with the further 11 being offered support through our partnership with Inspiring Scotland.
Blairtummock House
This work builds on the earlier success experienced by the partnership in repurposing Blairtummock House and surrounding land as a college annexe and early learning setting with outdoor learning space. This particular project was truly a collaborative effort with organisations as varied as Glasgow Kelvin College, Jobs and Business Glasgow, Community Safety Glasgow and City Building Glasgow working with council services including Education, Land and Environmental Services and Development and Regeneration Services - all contributing to the successful and timeous delivery of expansion capacity. The partnership have clearly stated their intention to build on and replicate this collaborative approach not only in Childcare but across all the priority and focus areas outlined in the plan.
For more details on the Blairtummock programme please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMgRkrUR6t4&feature=youtu.be
Signpost:
For more information about Glasgow's early learning and childcare visit https://www.gfis.org.uk/