Truss confirms she wants schools open all day

[Simona]

I did ask Rickysmiths if she would feedback on her conference but not sure if it was the one I was asking about

I was referring to the one on Thursday 6 June, it was not a conference but the Achieving 2 year olds 'national network meeting' with LAs..360 people attended including Truss herself

No need now as I have received it from Hempsall himself, who chaired the meeting, so I am now aware why some LAs are still holding back before including cms...that makes me wonder what pacey is going to achieve by contacting all LAs but we can only wait and see

[rickysmiths]

But Simona, you're again assuming parents will want to send children to school at 2. How many of us, as parents, would have chosen to send out children to school at that age?
Just because it's proposed & encouraged, doesn't mean it will work.

Sometimes I think it's a case of letting these things go ahead. Like with the school wrap around care that was introduced in 2005 - let them get on with it, then sit back & watch it fail.

I'm guessing the same will happen with agencies. I don't know that we've got much chance of blocking them now, so I think our best hope is to follow the trials, boycott them & let them fail all by themselves

The thing is though as I understand it from the Conference I went to in London last week it will only be disadvantaged 2 year olds who attract the funding that would be offered places in school anyway.

[Mouse]

The thing is though as I understand it from the Conference I went to in London last week it will only be disadvantaged 2 year olds who attract the funding that would be offered places in school anyway.

That's what I meant to ask you the other day & forgot! I was going to ask if these places were being created for current 2 year olds in childcare, or for the new group of disadvantaged 2 year olds?

My understanding is that there is a whole new set of children coming into childcare. They're not in it because parents are working. They're in it because the government is trying to got disadvantaged 2 year olds into some sort of education. If it hadn't been for the 2 year old funding they wouldn't have needed childcare as they probably wouldn't have been going in to it for family/work reasons. I don't see it as taking work away from us because it's a completely new bunch of children entering childcare for the first time...does that make sense? The working parents (where most of our 2yr olds come from now) won't use it as they won't qualify, so we'll still have that market.

[rickysmiths]

exactly ,she hasn't thought it through - the cost on the government for 6 hours of free education/childcare every day would be HUGE - where are they going to find that money - can't see the government agreeing to it.

2 year olds need love, care and attention - can ANYONE imagine 30 2 year olds in a room together. If she does get her way I see no option than multi-story primary/nursery schools - horrible thought

It won't be all 2 year olds. It will only be the ones that meet the criteria for the 2 year funding, so the disadvantaged ones. However I think things will fall flat when the Government realise they can't afford all the 'free childcare'.

They have also panicked about finding places for 2 year old funded children and this is why they are allowing schools to have them.

Schools are being funded to make the space for them and there are schools right now who are preparing to take 2 year olds from Sept 2013.

All this has been introduced by stealth and with no consultation with cms because I believe Truss can be bothered with us because she sees us as too expensive to keep running. That is why she effectively wants to Privatise us by making us join privately run and funded Agencies which will mainly be run by our competitors the Private Nursery Chains.

The only people who would really stop her in her tracks are all the thousands of parents who choose to us us, they need to wake up and rise up and shout very loudly very quickly.

[Simona]

When I get the 'live' transcript from the Westminster Forum I will post it...it was not mentioned that 2 year olds in schools will only be the vulnerable ones

Maybe you have a transcript from your conference?