Early Childhood Practitioners’ Experiences Of Regulatory Processes and Their Perceptions Of How They Affect Their Wellbeing in Day Nurseries: A Small-Scale Exploratory Study

This small-scale empirical study explores the professional wellbeing of nine early childhood practitioners (ECPs) working across nine different settings within a single social enterprise in England. This research employs an interpretivist and qualitative research design, using semi-structured interviews and weekly journals to collect data. The thesis privileges the voices of ECPs and provides insights into their experiences of professional wellbeing within the context of regulation. The study applies post-structural theory as a critical lens to examine the power/knowledge discourse within ECPs’ experiences of regulation. Additionally, feminist theory is applied as a complementary lens, as it illuminates the perspectives of women participants and how they position themselves across regulatory frameworks. Nine participants were recruited for this study, all of which held over two years’ experience in their roles, in addition to having experienced a nursery inspection. Each participant was invited to keep a short, weekly reflective journal over a period of four months and subsequently participate in a semi-structured interview. The findings reveal that ECPs understand professional wellbeing as a multifaceted phenomenon in their lives and identify a strong connection between professional and personal wellbeing. Findings also show that ECPs have difficulty in sustaining their own professional wellbeing; and those in leadership positions feel a sense of responsibility and take steps to ensure the wellbeing of their teams. ECPs reveal that encounters with regulation have had an adverse impact on their professional wellbeing and they convey concerns about regulatory processes in England, particularly with regard to the criteria for maintaining staff-to-child ratios and qualifications. Additionally, ECPs emphasise that the act of preparing for inspections, and the anticipation of them, have a substantial impact upon their personal and professional wellbeing. Practitioners perceive that the regulator, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), does not appreciate their value and fails to consider their wellbeing during inspections. Lastly, ECPs maintain the perception that the regulator exercises subjective and inconsistent judgements with regard to the quality of settings. As a result, ECPs adopt targeted strategies to mitigate the impact of regulation on their wellbeing. They emphasise the need for reform of the regulatory environment in order that it acknowledges their professional wellbeing.