I am a qualified teacher, my PGCE covered ages 3-13 and at the time of training had no children of my own. The most valuable parts of the training were philosophy of teaching, child psychology and child develpment. In my first year of teaching I came to the conclusion that I was ‘missing’ something and although I didn’t think ‘must have children’ I knew that once I’d brought up my own children I would have so much more understanding of how children learn. Four children and 20 years on I am still learning about and thoroughly enjoying helping my early years class learn and grow. However, non-early years teachers often seem to regard those working in early years as child minders and that the children ‘are only playing’, so it is OK for me to ‘look after’ a class of 25 on my own whilst my teaching assistant helps in another class. My point is that whilst a ‘teacher’ needs to understand child development AND be enthusiastic about learning, they cannot do it alone. It is very hard work being a school teacher – I work every night and weekends and in the holidays for my pay which in the grand scale of professional pay is not great considering the hours put in – but I would happily have no more pay increases if it meant I could have an extra TA in class with me all the time. It’s also worth knowing that in schools the EY TA only works the hours she is paid for in class and doesn’t take work home. Also as a school teacher I have whole school subject leadership responsibilities in addition to teaching my EY class, have to lead assemblies, undertake subject monitoring, be a team leader for everyone working in my classroom, have to liaise with external professionals .. And maintain learning journals for every child in my class as they are all my key children. I have been a pre-school leader and the difference between ‘teaching in pre-school’ and ‘teaching in school’ is huge; the quality of interaction between adult and child is the same, but the added extras of doing it in a school possibly account for the huge difference in pay.

I agree with all that you say Kathy. I am an EYP and have been frustrated that my skills are not valued as highly as a teacher. One thing that has niggled me recently is the references made to the EPPE study, saying that outcomes are better when a teacher is present. Surely, this study was before the EYP status and so does not reflect current early years education. I know that when I started working in early years there were many people running play groups who had to make the leap to pre-school with very little training and I am sure that at that time teachers were probably better equipped to promote learning but things have moved on. It would be interesting to do a similar study looking at the effect of graduate led practice so that those of us who have studied early years in such detail can show the impact of their work and these comparisons with teachers can end.

I found this article really interesting, as an EYPS candidate I can’t believe the difference between an early years graduate and a teacher. I feel that the EYP status has not been advertised well enough by government as most parents and some practitioners are not aware of what the role means and what an EYP does. The CWDC could do more work on providing information about the role in settings.

On a positive note I loved this article and agree that any adult who is engaging and stimulating a child is being a ‘teacher’ no matter what their status/qualifications may be.