Nostalgia

Val and I are presenting a paper in Glasgow in April 2012; two parts of our central thinking will be that, firstly, from interviews and conversations with a range of practitioners both past, present and to-be, we see an expressed priority in practical and realistic pragmatism in negotiating careers. This is set against selected pathways which are determined by higher ideals and social forces, like gender oppression...

Secondly, listening to more seasoned respondents, there is some evidence of regret for times past notably in the way qualifications are sought and why; their status and relevance.

Starting Points...Then and Now?

Career planning is something that is focussed upon in a whole range of early years courses at many levels. Often this is portrayed as and predicted to be a smooth pathway; aspiration being geared largely to qualifications. But, looking back, where did the initial drive come from?

Gemma, Rhanne and Francis all have considerable childcare experience now but came at the job for some different reasons and thinking.

Here we find Gemma’s starting point:

The way my mum and ad were with me kind of inspired me to carry on…itb sounds really weird but the neighbours next door at the time had three children…so it got to Saturday afternoon and I would go round an help look after the children. [I was] 14 at the time, quite young…and it wasn’t me wanting my own children, it was just I enjoyed looking after them and helping; that’s where I think, on reflection that’s where it came from…neighbours children.

According to Rhanne,

It was through my children, really through having my children and when my eldest…took her to mother and toddler group and got involved with it, came on the committee and then became Chair..it was a voluntary role really…then she progressed on to Playgroup and I became a volunteer at the playgroup and did fundraising…I just wanted to be involved in what she was doing and the experiences that she was having and be part of that…that involvement in her life really. Then we I became involved, it was something I’d like to do as a career really that I’d never thought about..from leaving school, I just enjoyed doing it

Looking at Francis,

Here we can see that there is common bedrock feeling that being with children, your own/anybody’s children is a good place to be and one which appeals to what is felt to be worthwhile. You could say that there could be ’vocational’ elements? Heart then head, initial heart-felt decisions taken and rationally developed according to the emerging sector landscape? These could be said to be realistically negotiated positions, now, in the light of change…this might have something to say about these more seasoned and experienced workers ahving a measure of command and satisfaction over their current roles and likely progression?

...always wanted to be a Nursery Nurse from when I was at school, left school [Why?] I just loved being with children…and families, I always wanted to be Mary Poppins, sounds a bit corny. I was a young school leaver (August birthday) so I did a BTec First Diploma in Care, that was my first course, which was quite scary being exposed to the elderley at the age of 16 but that’s been very beneficial, gave me a really good overview…

We need also to remember that these participants are recollecting; that is looking back some years on a domain that has changed radically (National Strategy, public/private responsibilities, professionalisation etc) over that period. It begs the question whether the ideas are the same now?

A Rural Practitioner..

Following consent, this short interview was carried out in Spring 2010. After some background, it recalls some of the reasons for the respondent’s thinking now. This includes personal experiences and a specific rural context of her life and work (as a playgroup leader)


The method is one of simply listening to the recording, noting down some content (not verbatim) and selectively seeking points for extension.

There’s many important points here made in an ordered way; these include an outline (curriculum) philosophy about ‘going with’ the child’s desires, the playgroup’s future, some thoughts about what the future might look like for the respondent and the context of services in a rural farming environment and herself. It is this final part which warrants some further analysis.

We touch here one small but significant aspect of 21st century. The local agricultural community is basically one of a set of small increasingly hard-pressed rural land-based enterprises. Expansion in what is a National Park is accounted as being very constrained and planning permission appears to be a very long and (overly) complex process. This means, for the speaker, that the area reflects a trend in the farming industry to leave the vocation and move away. Also, a point about the cost of housing may be being made.

From a playgroup point-of-view, this means a decline in the number of young children in the community who may want to avail themselves of her (and a colleague’s) services on offer to children and their families.

This situation is spoken of, naturally, as a regret; in response to a question about the provision’s future

We’ll struggle..sad as it is, the playgroup will die away… Young families cannot afford to live [here]…you’re not allowed to extend because of the Peak Park [regulations]…no young children coming in

A prognosis made even more uncertain by the pending general election.

This may line up quite nicely with some thoughts by Mervyn Benford of the National Association of Small Schools (BBC 2011). The main point made is that authorities might not ‘understand’ what small rural schools do for their communities and that a plain cost per pupil is too simplistic a formula; the equation probably includes transport, the relative performance of the youngsters and the “real way that learning takes place in your life and my life, at home and in everyday work”


BBC (2011) Farming Today sourced at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zlhhd#synopsis accessed 22nd March

More News..

This site has been around a bit now (three years, almost to the day) and to be honest it's taking some time to get off the ground! This has been mainly about difficult it has been to find time to seriously address our vision together but I think we may well have solved that one and Val is, as we speak, preparing a planning/scoping document...the process moves on :-).