Government announce new Childhood Practice qualification guidance

The Scottish Government today announced that the requirement to gain the level 9 Childhood Practice award for all managers of day care of children services will be 1 December 2011. The Childhood Practice award has now been added to the list of qualifications the SSSC accepts for registration for this group.

The Scottish Government has confirmed that requirement will apply to managers of all daycare services for children, including early years establishments, playgroups and out of school care, these will no longer be staggered as had originally been intended.

More information is available in the questions answered by the Scottish Government below.  You can also read our questions and answers about the Childhood Practice Awards to learn more about the qualification.

Your questions answered by Scottish Government

Why can’t the level 9 date be the same as the date for required registration?

Scottish Government always said we would introduce the Level 9 requirement in 2011. Bringing this forward to the 2010 required registration date would significantly reduce the time that we were giving many people to get the qualification. We recognise the current financial climate and the fact that you have to workforce plan with dwindling resources. We want to give you as much time as possible, whilst still achieving our policy objective of getting every manager qualified to Level 9.

You have always said you would split out of school care, why the change?

Over the years we have become increasingly aware of the danger of creating a two tier structure – within the one workforce. It is important to out of school care managers that they have the same status, and are treated equally, with early years.

We have been overwhelmed by the response from universities (and soon colleges) who are putting in a lot of commitment to Childhood Practice. We have more places than we could have hoped for in 2006.

We have better statistics than ever before about the numbers of managers who need the qualification and this has reassured us that there is no longer a need to split off out of school care.

Our out of school care managers will never be able to achieve the required level within 3 years

Each case will be different. Managers registering this year will, in effect, have 8 years to obtain the qualification.

Managers already registered should be prioritised first to give them as much time as possible.

The SVQ 4 in play work has been credit rated very well against the Level 9 – so people who hold this are not at any disadvantage compared with early years workers.
 
You can download the letter sent out by Scottish Government here:
http://www.sssc.uk.com/download-document/1305-scottish-government-letter-about-childhood-practice-award-and-sssc-registration-requirements.html