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Notices and Press Releases

Daycare Trust : Response To Report On Impact Of Nurseries

Alison Garnham, Joint-Chief Executive of the Daycare Trust, responds to the coverage of the DfES report on the impact of the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative:

"It's important that the way these findings are being reported doesn't lead us to a misleading assumption that nurseries are bad for children."

"The research does seem to indicate that, at the extreme end of the spectrum, extremely long hours in a group care setting are not the best solution for young babies and toddlers, but this in no way negates the vital importance of good early years care and education for children."

"One of the main findings of the DfES report was that providing good, local nurseries can help some of the poorest and most disadvantaged children; and as members of the End Child Poverty Campaign, we'd also note that living in poverty, as so many of our children still do, is hardly the best start in life."

"Daycare Trust is a big supporter of the government's National Childcare Strategy, and it's not about forcing children into dawn-till-dusk daycare; it's about providing children with opportunities to play, learn and grow in a safe, stable environment while their parents work or study at a pace that suits them and their children."

"The government and the childcare sector will need to study these findings with care and use them to work to improve both early years childcare and the choices available to parents - fathers as well as mothers - with very young children."

"Daycare Trust calls for:

"High-quality early years care and education - comparable to that which is available in the Nordic countries, where looking after children is a highly-paid and highly-regarded career for professionals, and education and child development are as significant as care."

"The US study which disputes the significance of quality in childcare was undertaken in a very different context, where traditionally the quality of daycare is not the same as that in Europe. It also has to be seen against a background in the US of extremely poor maternity pay, maternity leave and annual leave entitlements."

"Flexibility in the workplace for fathers and mothers is perhaps the biggest lesson to be learned both by Government and by employers. We need to invest in families by providing more help for parents to work the hours that suit their needs and those of their children."