The Open EYE conference will be held on Saturday 16th February at The Resources Centre, Holloway Rd, London, N7 6PA, from 9.00am to 4.30pm. Speakers will include:
Professor LILIAN KATZ (Early Childhood Specialist, University of Illinois)
Dr PENELOPE LEACH (Fellow of the British Psychological Society )
SUE PALMER (Educational Consultant and Writer)
Dr DOMINIC WYSE (Lecturer in Early Years & Primary Education, Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge)
The cost is £60 for the full day.
A reduced rate of £35 is available for childminders, students and unwaged. To reserve your place, please contact Alison Moore at alb.moore@gmail.com. Tel 07802 659 882. For full details please see our conference flyer.
Open EYE 
Is there a discussion site linked to the open eye website and campaign?
This campaign is linked to the EYFS but is it not the foundation stage guidelines that are having knock on effects to younger children already? The EYFS will affect Steiner Schools because they have been able to distance themselves from mandatory guidelines, but most schools seem to be teaching children to read and write as soon as they get hold of them at age 4 or younger with little emphasis on underlying language development, creativity and play. Is this conference only to address the Steiner School EYFS issue, or does it have a wider scope?
Hi, Karen – sorry for the delay in reply. No, we have no discussion site at present – sorry.
Anna, thanks for your message, too. Yes, the EYFS will affect Steiner schools, as well as other independent schools who would rather set their own policies. It will also affect childminders, nurseries, playgroups…
The conference will not just be looking at the Steiner issue; in fact, as far as I know, none of the speakers have a connection with Steiner education. It will definitely be addressing the wider issues.
I’ve been a childminder for a number of years. I WANT TO CONTINUE TO DO THE JOB NOT WRITE ABOUT IT! Preschools now spend very little time during a session playing with the children and my local is one is very worried about it, they spend most of their time with clipboards and deciding what to write that isn’t exactly what they wrote last time. Who is this supposed to be for?, parents don’t want it. I agree with good quality training but this is being forced upon us and is alien to how a lot of people promote childcare . Childminders provide a home based setting and by working closely with the parents is the next best to being at home. It is a very personal form of childcare and I dread being forced into turning my home into a nursery.
Jill and I have been childminding for well over 30 years between us and over that period we have always aspired to gain good inspection results from both Oftsed and the Social Services alike. We have always got high report markings and have always got excellent references from the parents whose children we have cared for.
Both our children went to University and both have degrees and we pride ourselves that we care for each and every child that we mind in the same manner as our own. Every child is treated as an individual and the way we deal with each of them is tailored to their own specific needs.
Now with the imposition of EYFS and all the training etc it entails we are being told that on one hand we are good but on the other we have to forget the way we do it and now do it another way – or else!!
36% of all childminders in the UK earn less than £3.00 per hour – well below the minimum wage and yet the Government expects each and everyone of us to drop everything and attend in our own time at weekends up to 9 days in some areas of training courses. Then as from September 2008 we will be expected to evaluate each child we mind under some 171 different headings keep records and liase with whoever is to be the next carer in the chain of care
At preliminary meetings we have attended we have been told that it doesn’t involve much work for us – well why does it take 9 days to explain it then?
The way we see it is that EYFS may benefit children (although we do feel that the freedom parents had about choosing the way in which their children would be brought up will end up a thing of the past); parents who can’t be bothered to teach their own children and most certainly the Government (whose dismal record of policies to educate 5-7 year olds has failed completely) but what it certainly won’t do is benefit the childminder who will have to do all the work and for absolutely nothing in return.
All childcare qualifications are worth precisely nothing when it comes to them actually putting an extra penny of the table of any childminder. Childminders are not only in direct competition with each other but also with every nursery in their area. Parents maybe given tax breaks to pay for childcare but any childminder will tell you that none of this chidcare money actually gets passed onto them. Parents are governed in the main by the cost of childcare so when they find two childminders they like they opt for the cheapest. Any childminder who therefore attains any quaification would in effect be commiting financial suicide if they put their rates up about the local going rate. And what of the tax credits given for childcare – it goes towards the new car or the next summer holiday or meal out – most of which many childminders cannot afford on what they earn.
EYFS with its extra training, onerous observations and markings is nothing but education on the cheap and in fact the Government should be ashamed for thinking that we will simply lay down and take what is given to us and be grateful.
If Government insists on imposing EYFS upon childminders then by 2015 there won’t be many of us left especially if we will all be required to gain an NVQ3 level qualification to earn less than the minimum wage.
Enough is enough!!!
I have worked in nurseries from private to volentary and became a deputy manager in my last position however after reading through the new eyfs that most people working in childcare were saying how fabulous, I found myself thinking what about the child. The Government are expecting too much from children today I have seen children at aged 4 feel that they are not as good as their class mates due to not achieving the same from games, what happened to learning through play and learning at your own rate, why are children aged 4 now expected to read and write when its their social and emotional skills nurseries should be concentrating on.
Workig in a nursery you find yourself spending less and less time with the children and being unable to give them the care and attention they deserve and need.
free quotes
Excellent post. Keep it up!
Quote this;
EYFS is not for out of school clubs.