This release is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release as it may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example, new administrative data sources.
This chapter provides information on ELC Staff, their professional development activities and work to support children’s early development. It also describes job satisfaction, wellbeing and stress factors as reported by ELC staff.
The most common professional development activity undertaken by ELC staff in the year prior to the survey was attending courses, seminars or workshops. When asked about professional development activities they availed of in the past 12 months, more than eight in ten ELC staff (84.5% of staff in pre-primary settings, 82.6% of staff settings for children under age 3) reported they had attended courses, seminars or workshops either in person, virtually or both.
There were much lower levels of participation in all other types of professional development activities listed. Around seven in ten staff reported not having attended conferences where ELC staff/researchers presented their research (72.9% of staff in pre-primary settings, 75.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3), not having undertaken qualification programmes (73.3% of staff in pre-primary settings, 73.4% of staff in settings for children under age 3) or not taking part in an induction/orientation (73.7% of staff in pre-primary settings, 72.1% of staff in settings for children under age 3) (See Table 3.1 and Table 3.2).
More than six in ten ELC staff (61.8% of staff in pre-primary settings, 62.3% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported that their professional development activities impacted positively (quite a bit or a lot) on their work (See Figure 3.1).
Of the ELC staff who participated in professional development activities around four in ten (38.9% of staff in pre-primary settings, 41.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported receiving materials needed for the activities (e.g. office supplies). While just under four in ten ELC staff from pre-primary settings (37.3%) and around three in ten staff from settings for children under age 3 (29.5%), who participated in professional activities, reported receiving reimbursement or payments of professional development costs (e.g. registration fees).
Just over two in ten staff (21.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 23.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported receiving an increased salary as a result of participating in professional development activities (See Figure 3.2).
With regard to professional development needs, the primary area where ELC staff reported a moderate or high level of need was working with dual or second language learners (58.2% of staff in pre-primary settings, 60.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3). This was followed by working with children with special educational needs (55.0% of staff in pre-primary settings, 52.8% of staff in settings for children under age 3) (See Table 3.3 and Table 3.4).
Staff in both settings were presented with a list of potential barriers to participating in professional development and asked to indicate the extent of their agreement with each statement. The greatest barrier to participating in professional development for staff in both settings was insufficient staff cover. More than two-thirds (66.8%) of staff in pre-primary settings and nearly three-quarters (73.6%) of ELC staff from settings for children under age 3 agreed or strongly agreed that insufficient staff to fill in for an absence was a barrier to participating in professional development. Other barriers to professional development that the staff agreed or strongly agreed with included professional development being too expensive (65% of staff in pre-primary settings, 68.8% of staff in settings for children under age 3) and a lack of incentives to participate in professional development (57.3% of staff in pre-primary settings, 61.7% of staff in settings for children under age 3) (See Table 3.5 and Table 3.6).
ELC staff were asked a series of questions on activities they used during their working week to facilitate children’s early literacy, numeracy, prosocial and emotional development along with encouraging play and exploration.
Of the eight practices presented as supporting literacy development, singing songs with or to children was the most frequently used with 88.1% of staff in pre-primary settings and 89.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3 doing this more than once a day. Reading books to children and asking questions when reading books to children were the second and third most highly used activities to support literacy development in both types of settings in the previous working week (See Table 3.7 and Table 3.8).
Regarding numerical development, more than six in ten ELC staff helped children to use numbers or to count (69.1% of staff from pre-primary settings, 62.8% of staff from settings for children under age 3) and verbalised maths concepts in everyday routines (66.7% of staff from pre-primary settings, 62.5% of staff from settings for children under age 3) at least once a day in the previous working week (See Figure 3.4 and Figure 3.5).
ELC staff were asked how often during their work week they used four different practices to support children’s prosocial development. These practices were: encouraging sharing amongst children; encouraging children if they helped each other; encouraging small group play that included other children and encouraging children if they comforted each other. More than eight in ten ELC staff, from both settings, reported using all four practices to support the children’s prosocial development more than once a day. Encouraging sharing among children (93.4% of staff in pre-primary settings, 91.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3) and encouraging children if they helped each other (92.8% of staff in pre-primary settings, 91.6% of staff in settings for children under age 3) were the two practices reported most frequently (See Table 3.9 and Table 3.10).
Regarding emotional development, ELC staff were asked how often during their work week they used four different practices to support children in this area. These practices were: talking with children about feelings; helping children understand their feelings; comforting children who were upset, and helping children express their feelings. Comforting children when they were upset (88.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 87.8% of staff in settings for children under age 3) and helping children express their feelings (86.7% of staff in pre-primary settings, 80.3% of staff in settings for children under age 3) were the top two practices to support emotional development that the ELC staff had used more than once a day in their previous working week (See Figure 3.5 and Figure 3.6).
ELC staff were asked to indicate how frequently they engaged in seven different practices to support children’s play and exploration (See Table 3.11 and Table 3.12). ELC staff reported allowing children to take the lead when they played with them (83.9% of staff in pre-primary settings, 75.3% of staff in settings for children under age 3), responding positively to non-verbal invitations to play (81.9% of staff in pre-primary settings, 84.4% of staff in settings for children under age 3) and letting a child play alone if they were deeply engaged in play (78.4% of staff in pre-primary settings, 75.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3) as the top three practices they employed more than once a day in the last working week to support play in their setting (See Table 3.11 and Table 3.12).
Attitudes towards the immediate setting environment and the setting manager tended to be positive. ELC staff reported high levels of satisfaction with the setting leadership. Around nine in ten (91.9% of staff in pre-primary settings, 87.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3) agreed or strongly agreed that the setting manager had a strong vision for the setting and that the setting manager encouraged staff to take responsibility for improving their practices (90.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 89.1% of staff in settings for children under age 3). However, around four in ten (36.5% of staff in pre-primary settings, 46.6% of staff in settings for children under age 3) felt they needed more support from their setting manager (See Table 3.13 and Table 3.14).
ELC staff were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with twelve statements in relation to job satisfaction (See Figure 3.7 and Figure 3.8). More than nine in ten (94.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 93.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3) agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed working at their setting. More than nine in ten (93.0%) pre-primary setting ELC staff and over eight in ten (81.7%) ELC staff from settings for children under age 3 agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend their setting as a good place to work.
Staff expressed similarly positive perceptions of how they were valued by children and parents/guardians. The majority of ELC staff, 96.8% of staff in pre-primary settings and 98.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3, agreed or strongly agreed that the children in their setting valued them. More than eight in ten (85.6% of staff in pre-primary, 86.7% of staff in settings for children under age 3) agreed or strongly agreed that the parents/guardians valued them.
A different pattern was observed for attitudes towards wider factors related to job satisfaction. Around three quarters of ELC staff (73.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 78.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3) were dissatisfied with the salary they received from work. Around seven in ten staff (69.4% of staff in pre-primary, 71.9% of staff in settings for children under age 3) did not agree that ELC staff are valued in society (See Figure 3.7 and Figure 3.8).
ELC staff were asked how likely a set of factors were to cause them to leave their role in the next five years. More than four in ten ELC Staff (42.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 49.2% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported it was ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ that they would work in a different job outside the ELC sector within the next five years. Around half of ELC Staff (48.7% of staff in pre-primary settings, 52.4% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported they would leave to attend family responsibilities.
Around four in ten ELC staff (44.2% of staff in pre-primary settings, 38.6% of staff in settings for children under age 3) reported it was ‘not at all likely’ they would leave their role to become an ELC setting manager (See Table 3.15 and Table 3.16).
ELC staff were asked about their wellbeing at work across four statements: whether they experience stress, whether they have time for their personal life, and the extent that their job negatively impacted their mental and physical health. The response options were ‘not at all’, ‘to some extent’, ‘quite a bit’, and ‘a lot’. Around half of pre-primary setting ELC staff (49.1%) and six in ten of ELC staff from settings for children under age 3 (61.4%) reported experiencing quite a bit or a lot of stress at work. Around two in five staff working in pre-primary settings (39.8%) and more than four in ten staff working in settings for children under age 3 (46.9%) answered ‘not at all’ or ‘to some extent’ when asked if their job left time for their personal life (See Figure 3.9 and Figure 3.10).
ELC staff were asked to highlight sources of stress in their work (See Figure 3.11 and Figure 3.12). Having too much work related to documenting children’s development (49.0% of staff in pre-primary settings, 55.4% of staff in settings for children under age 3) and having too much administrative work to do (48.6% of staff in pre-primary settings, 55.5% of staff in settings for children under age 3) were identified by both types of settings as being ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a lot’ of the sources of stress at work. More than half of the ELC staff in settings for children under age 3 identified both having extra duties due to absent staff (56.3%) and having too many tasks to do at the same time (56.5%) as contributing ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a lot’ of stress to their work (See Figure 3.11 and Figure 3.12).
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