An exploration into early years practitioners' work experiences in private day nurseries and voluntary sector pre-schools in England

Abstract

This thesis is a study of early years practitioners’ experiences of their working lives. The data was collected from 25 semi-structured interviews with 25 participants in four early years settings. This is a qualitative study that explores what influences early years practitioners’ working identities and considers the similarities and differences of experiences working in a private day nursery (PDN) and a voluntary sector pre-school (VSPS).

The findings demonstrate that the type of provision directly affects early years practitioners’ working experiences, which has a marked impact on their working identities. Commonalities between the two groups exist in daily tasks, the rewarding aspect of emotional labour and in the experiences of policy and inspection. Likewise, the two groups share a similar disregard for the qualification system. However, there are differences in the two groups, especially the process of being managed, pay, working conditions, hours worked and professional development opportunities.

Participants in the PDN settings voiced much more unhappiness in their work and experienced greater frustrations. This resulted in higher staff turnover, and managers reported continued recruitment problems. Different management styles between the two types of settings had a marked impact on how valued and empowered staff felt. This directly affected staff retention. There was a clear difference in staff profiles within the two setting types, with the VSPS settings having older, more-experienced staff and the PDN settings having a high turnover of young and inexperienced staff.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Chronoula Voutsina: orcid.org/0000-0003-2196-5816

ORCID for Michael Tomlinson: orcid.org/0000-0002-1057-5188

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