The review was launched on Monday 2 August, and all submissions need to be in by 30 September.

Clearly as a professional association we are keen to ensure our position is informed by all of our members and that we use this opportunity to ensure your voice is heard. We are therefore working to put together our own comprehensive submission, and need you to help us get it exactly right.

We know some of you have already been compiling or contributing to responses from your own nurseries, children’s centres, LAs and other network groups. Indeed we would encourage you all to put together your own setting or group submissions.

But please also contribute to ours! So that we can collate and edit it all together, please send us your views by Mon 13th September.

We welcome your views on all the areas covered in the consultation. However please do make sure you specifically think about the areas we particularly focus on (eg the role of EYPs (especially in leading the EYFS), qualifications, workload, role of QTS vs EYPS, ratios, even pay/status). You may also want to revisit any local submission and make sure these issues are covered too!

The consultation can be found here:

http://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1727&external=no&menu=1

Please do spread the word and encourage everyone to submit their views. This is a key chance for you as a professional cadre of leaders to influence the future of the sector. Rest assured that others will make sure their views are heard. Let’s make sure that our voice is there too, and that we have the evidence provided by you to make our voice one that carries weight.

Just to remind you – we need your responses to us by Mon 13th September – and any separate response you put in must be submitted by 30th September. So please get your thinking caps on and help ensure we are hearing you so we in turn are heard loud and clear.

Sadly, pre-election the debates seemed to reveal a worrying lack of engagement and priority given to the early years agenda, with few moments when our collective issues really seemed to catch the limelight.

However we cannot let our issues lie and we won’t.

The current national political negotiations hold real potential quandaries for all of us. Some of the divides may be obscure but there are also very real differences:

• The Lib Dems and Tories have both demonstrated suspicion or dislike of the EYFS though their remedies remain undetailed
• Labour have driven through the EYPS programme and seem to remain committed, whereas both the other main parties have stayed silent
• Wider questions of qualifications, despite the focus within the sector itself, has been largely ignored
• The Tories have pursued a values-agenda with the proposed marriage tax break which has been rejected by both Labour and the Lib Dems
• The future of Sure Start, the number and role of Children’s Centres in the future, and the interaction of Outreach workers with health visitor numbers did feature in campaigning and in manifestos – yet the figures and likely real impacts of policies remain unclear
• Flexible working policies and extended parental leave are promoted by all parties – although as ever “details” (ie levels of pay and support) remain less clear yet are crucial in determining genuine access and uptake
• The logic that more flexible working and a focus on employment must demand more in terms of the the hours and demands on early years settings and workers seems to be entirely missed
• Basics such as pay and status seem to remain in the shadows

There’s clearly much to play for in the ongoing debates.

Across the sector we do not always agree ourselves on the way forward. However, there are some basics which few of us dispute. And maybe there is something here about focusing our attention, and our collective weight and strength, on the underlying issues that we all know must be tackled. They might be hard, and they may not lend themselves to eye-catching policies … but here are some of our suggestions for the real issues we should all be ganging together to fight:

Let’s demand higher status for the early years sector and stand up proudly for what we do.

Let’s demand the funding, support and structures that quality provision cannot do without.

Let’s demand proper pay, conditions, recognition and career structures for everyone working in early years at every level.

Let’s demand real recognition that every child has the right to the best start in life, and that this means every child having access to the very highest quality education and care.

Whoever forms the next government we are going to need to stand firmer and stronger than ever to ensure every single child has the best possible access and opportunities, every single parent and carer feels truly confident in the care and education their child receives, and every single early years worker has the respect, support and recognition of society.

So over the next few hours, days, weeks and months let’s stand together and demand that all our politicians, on this vital subject, put party politics aside and stand up for our children and our future.

However there is also much that is fragile. The postponed implementation of the Early Years Single Funding Formula demonstrates how much misunderstanding remains about how this compex sector really operates. The recent turnaround regarding childcare vouchers is to be welcomed – but the slower progress towards free places for two-year-olds is not.

Recruitment onto the latest Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) pathways has been very promising. Yet significant evidence has emerged in the last year of problems with retention, especially in the PVI sector. The case for introducing proper pay arrangments, and clear career paths remains strong, as demonstrated by the several hundred signatories who have signed the petition on the Prime Ministers’ website (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/eyppayscales/).

Fundamentally, the problem remains that early years is chronically underfunded, and remains a cinderella sector. The Daycare Trust research published recently reminds us all of the benefits of graduate leadership, as well as demonstrating the shortfall in funding across the sector. As a society, we are letting down our youngest children.

The evidence is clear: high quality early years education and care not only changes the lives of individual children and families, it also offers a clear return on investment higher than almost any other public expenditure.

At a time of ongoing economic crisis, this is one sector where the government – whatever colour it may be by mid-2010 – must invest far more substantially.