Making childcare cheaper and better?

I feel there is a bit of misunderstanding about the word 'teaching' in regard to nursery schools. It doesn't necessariy mean sitting toddlers at tables and learning by rote. My DGS goes to a wonderful nursery 3 days a week and between his parents and the nursery he is growing up to be an intelligent and well adjusted little boy. At 2 and 9 months he knows all his colours and shapes, can count to ten and understand the value of the numbers. He recognises the numbers (gets 6 and 9 confused) recognises his own name and some other common words and sings the alphabet song. He is excellent at sharing, good at jigsaws and has a wonderful vocabulary. I don't think any of this has been 'taught' in the sitting down and forced way, it has been absorbed by him in his day to day life because the people who care for him are good at what they do, both parents and nursery. IMO this is the best way to teach little children.

Movedalot, oh there are so many confusions. As a qualified pre-school leader we were always coming up against terminologies that did not always suit. We tended not to use the word 'Teaching' seeing ourselves as 'Educators'. However, 'Teaching' was sometimes used to underline that fact that we did other things besides 'Child-Care' which is often seen as little more than keeping children safe and fed and watered. Yes, yes I know 'Child Care' in itself is a complex subject but I was always amazed at the wide variation of parental expectatations we encountered. The Pre-School I ran looked after 2 and a half year olds in separate sessions and then 3 - 5 years olds in other longer sessions. We were monitored by The Early Years Dept of Social Services and Ofsted and had to show that we provided a fully detailed education curriculum for each child plus all the other caring side of child care. Some parents saw us a little other than somewhere to park their children so that they could pop to the supermarket. At the other end of the spectrum we would have parents expecting us to be matching the school's curriculum for 5+ year olds. We always used to feel we would make good diplomats .....carefully treading our way through the minefields of parental expectations.

Anno I realised too late I had misread the "Lynne" Truss earlier in the thread. There was an early years Academic on Womens Hour who was very scathing about Liz Ts pronouncements.

My daughter (BSc & PhD) deliberately chose a preschool which did a minimum of "teaching" but was just a nice place to go and play and socialise with other children. We reckoned that with his parents and me hothousing him at home he would enjoy the break He certainly seems to be doing as well at school as his friends who went to a nursery that started them reading and writing.