CEY0002

Written evidence submitted by Little Oaks Pre-School

Personally, for our setting the main issue is retaining/recruiting qualified staff, it has taken us 10 months to recruit a deputy following the sudden death of the manager, luckily our current deputy has stepped up to the manager post, and she was the only applicant for the role. The deputy we recruited is only moving jobs for a more flexible working life as her children are younger and she wants term time hours.

We could recruit unqualified staff quite freely but obviously our ratios mean that we have to have a 50% split between qualified and unqualified. This is problematic as if we need one to one staff, we have to include them in the ratio and because in many cases these are a short-term recruitment qualified staff will not apply.

I think rather than mess with the staff to child ratio looking at the qualified staff ratio would benefit setting more, with no risk to a child’s safeguarding, there could be additional training needed prior to starting that could help such as face to face EYFS training, or initial shadowing for the probation period etc.

Wages are also a factor, supermarkets are offering more favourable wages, in some cases £3-£4 an hour more than minimum wage, we cannot compete with that using 2-, 3- and 4-year-old funding rates, as well as the cost-of-living impacting food and energy prices.

Support for children with additional needs is nonexistent, NHS wait times in our areas for a paediatrician is around 70 weeks that means we are sending these children to main stream school when they need a specialist provision, I have worked in the industry for over 18 years and we used to have about 1 autistic child a year now I have between 3 and 4 every year, these children come in with no red flags being raised by health visitor as their 2 year old check was done over the phone or none at all. Speech and language rates are even higher with a third of the cohort having a speech issue, from non-vocal, delay, EAL to pronunciation, you cannot refer to NHS SLT in our area, we have a team’s/telephone helpline in 90% of cases only advise is given no face to face, we as a setting are using our own funds to pay for SLT therapy in setting and the additional staffing cost a child with needs require.

All of these issues are having a detrimental impact on all staff, and the pay does not compensate for that pressure if anything it exaggerates it, they feel like no-one else cares or helps so why should I work and worry about these children when I can get paid £3 per hour go in and do my job and not be worried about whether “child a” will eat tonight/tomorrow or if “child b” and his family will get help as he has undiagnosed autism and lashes out in frustration because we don’t know what he needs, and thinking today was a good day because  everyone goes home safe and well !

For most of us this job is a passion its not about the money – but at this stage its about the level of support and the less support we have the more likely we are to turn out the lights and shut to door as we will be burnt out and the reserves will be used up – people matter and staff are my most important resource and we are running out of ideas to keep them motivated and happy.

December 2022