Commentary on All Day Early Learning

Full Time Early Learning

April 2008

Background

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board has had a long standing commitment to and involvement with early learning taking place in licensed child-care settings on school property, in parent drop in and resource centres and in kindergarten programs. Junior Kindergarten has been in all Hamilton schools since 1980, and was extended to all of the former county schools by 2000. A successful pilot all- day senior kindergarten program was run three years ago, and only funding restraints prevented its continuation and expansion. A Child Care Program leader was first appointed in 1987 to the Hamilton Board. An umbrella organisation, the Umbrella Family and Child Centres was incorporated by the Board the following year to provide child-care in Hamilton schools, and is the largest, although not the only provider of care, to the district schools. When the Ontario Early Years Centres were opened one was placed in a school and satellite programs opened shortly after on school sites. There are currently 54 OEYC sites in Hamilton.  In the last few years, the Urban Pilot for the Best Start Program opened in many east end schools and has been embraced by the Board. Parent centres started in2007.

In summary: Presently HWDSB has 96 elementary schools, all have junior kindergarten, 68 have early learning and or child-care sites and another four have parent centres.

Assumptions

The comments that follow presuppose that the intent of any expansion of programs of early learning is that they will provide quality experiences for children. There is much in the literature such to suggest that the well- known long- term benefits of early learning only accrue if the programs themselves have well and suitably qualified staff, adequate staffing ratios, positive inter-actions with children, rich and nurturing programs and suitable physical environments.

Capital Planning

The experience of the Best Start pilot demonstration site has shown that school sites can be wonderful place for early learning centres. But they are not per se always the best place for early learning centres.  Start –up criteria for the pilot program included that school sites, wherever possible, were to be chosen for the programs and what were then called hubs. So school space was found in a variety of settings across the east end of Hamilton including the basement of old schools. Available space in some old schools is not always physically accessible for those with buggies, lacks amenities such as wash rooms close by, is hot in summer, far from outdoor space and is not always attractive. Where there are these problems with the physical surroundings there is an impact on the program quality, as staff may have to walk all children to washrooms abandoning program time, and take large amounts of time to get them to outdoor play areas.  A recently completed survey of staff in early learning and care centres by the Early Years Research and Evaluation Committee of Hamilton’ Best Start found there were differences between those who worked in the demonstration site and those who worked elsewhere. (February 2008) Those who worked in the demonstration site were less satisfied with the physical lay-out of the indoor space than those who worked elsewhere.

Equally, some community space, such as church halls, may also suffer from the same issues described in old schools.

What is of importance is that the physical surroundings are compatible for providing quality early learning experiences. Purpose built is the best solution but may not be feasible. The requirements presently in the Day Nurseries Act should be used as the minimum standards, especially for space, windows, water and washrooms. Access to a gym and outdoor space for play is another essential requirement. It is more important that physical surroundings meet these requirements than that they are located in schools.

Community partnerships

 The intent of all services to children  and families  should be to integrate services so services across sectors link naturally together, are easy to use and to access, and respond to families’ needs. With respect to providing full- time quality early learning, neither existing school programs, nor child- care agencies can do this alone. In addition it is important to be able to support parents and assist them in finding suitable services for their children, as well as providing for children with special needs. Programs for the working parent should wrap around the full time early learning. Community partnerships are vital for all this to be achieved.  

Experience learnt from the Hamilton Best Start Demonstration sites has been that it is important that development builds on the existing community capacity. So over 50 partners sit at the Best Start Network table. There was also a conscious attempt to learn from Hamilton’s successful Early Words initiative, which provides an accessible and integrated service for speech and language services for young children in the district. This has been built on speech pathology services already available in a variety of settings. Early Words has operated on the premise that there is no need to recreate existing structures and that growth and actions are concentrated on those elements which will provide greater service to children and families. In addition municipal planning and the influential Hamilton Round Table for Poverty Reduction have been promoting a neighbourhood focus for planning and development. The centre of action should be at the neighbourhood level. So neighbourhood differences have been understood from the beginning and responded to. Full time- early learning centres as they are developed should continue to feed into this integrated and neighbourhood-centred approach.

In Hamilton there have been other special policy initiatives in children’s services which have not followed the pattern described above. Instead they have created cumbersome structures, not fully utilized existing community strengths, and from the perspective of the client, not provided seamless, accessible, timely, and flexible service.

Municipalities are presently charged with creating district child-care plans. Municipal support has been crucial in the urban Best Start Demonstration area. Full time early learning should be part of a continuum of early learning and care services.  Thus municipalities will need to be partners in any expansion of early learning.

In summary: communities are at different stages of development in the early learning area, but to be successful all must build on existing relationships, with an emphasis on service to families and young children. There is no need to create further silos in children’s services. Thus the important role of the Province is to articulate expectations and standards, rather than to impose structures and forms.

  

Staffing

There is support for the Consultant’s/Coordinators Association of Primary Educators (CAPE) Position Paper 2008, particularly in their recommendations that:

·         Ensure that all staff who interact with young children in the full time early learning program have the knowledge and skills required to promote language competence

·         Provide ratios of no less than 1 adult to 10 children, and no more than 20 children per class. (This builds on the positive experience of the previous Hamilton board, where all junior kindergarten classes were once staffed with one Educational Assistant and one teacher, to 20 children).

·         Establish programs that provide a “climate of delight” for children and reciprocal partnerships for parents

Qualifications:

All need to have mutual respect for what all partners bring to the table in this field, using the full time early learning program as an opportunity to expand on notions of early childhood education. The superior knowledge of child development provided through college training should be expanded to those who come through teacher’s college. (See the CAPE position paper). Existing training through teacher training or ECE training should be expanded, building bridges to both strands. Models such as those at Sir Wilfred Laurier, Charles Sturt and Brock Universities, where a BA/Bed two year program is possible after a 2 year college program, could be expanded to other universities. The success of Cuba in creating highly trained and qualified staff to work with children should be examined.

The question as to who should employ the early childhood education staff when they are not teachers is difficult.  Respect, ownership, and understanding do not always go hand in hand with sharing the same employer. The experience of the HWDSB with Parent Centres is that staff who are employed directly by the school board appear to be viewed with more respect than if they are hired by another agency.  Similar staff hired by OEYCS working in schools have not gained the same respect.  However, principals were involved in the development from the beginning of Parents’ Centres and have helped hire the staff which was not the case with OEYCs.  Thus, it may be the involvement of schools from the start of a new project, rather than employment status, which is the key element for respectful relationships. The model of Toronto’s First Duty, where staff retained employment from their sponsoring agency, has also been seen to work well. Experience of now 25 years of the Umbrella Family and Child Centres in schools has shown that relationships amongst ECE Umbrella staff and teaching and support staff are still largely driven by the attitude of principals. So in the future training of principals there should be attention paid to education about the training of those working in the early education field, and the need to respect and work with those early learning partners towards the common goal of reaching all students’ potential.

 Program

The two new curriculum documents, the ELECT and the Kindergarten document are not in conflict, but some energy needs to be placed in marrying the two. Overall, the full time early learning program should have a play-based curriculum with a strong emphasis on language acquisition

An all day program must pay attention to a properly supervised lunch hour with an emphasis on healthy eating, standards which meet those of public health, as well as teaching the appropriate social skills.  Consideration should be given to providing healthy supplements such as milk, soup, vegetables to food brought from home in those situations where a hot lunch will not be feasible.

Toronto’s First Duty has shown how a full day program can accommodate the needs of children who require a nap.

The requirements for outdoor play should be seriously considered as some children have few safe places to play outside in their home neighbourhoods. In addition the increase of childhood obesity suggests the need for more active play. More time outside should be contemplated than is currently provided in kindergarten.

In summary full time early learning is embraced as a positive step for children in this province so long as quality programs, settings, and staff are deployed.