Tara Shah 1800-word article intended for a practice audience.
‘The Foundation Phase has led to a ‘laissez faire’ approach to early years pedagogy in Wales’.  
Introduction
Cox and Sykes (2016) suggest that the Early Years is ‘devalued and seen only as a time of transition and preparation for something greater and more important’ (p.6). Although the Foundation Phase has many defined rules of learning in terms of the specific seven early learning goals (EYFS, 2017, p.5), the rules or regulations regarding pedagogy are difficult to define in terms of what practitioners’ actual roles are and whether it would be difficult to influence pedagogy (Stephen, 2010). That has led to the view that the Foundation Phase has led to a ‘laissez-faire’ approach to Early Years pedagogy.
In England, more attention is given to teachers teaching children from the age of eleven plus, with less attention given to the Early Years Foundation Stage Teacher (PSLA, 2014) dealing with children from birth to five years old, especially where pedagogy is concerned. With a national ‘shortage of 11,000 early years teachers’, as asserted in an article by Catherine Gaunt in Nursery World (2018, p.30), this results in some leaving the profession so that the future for Early Years provision is looking bleak in terms of qualified, experienced practitioners (Bonetti, 2018, p.4). Since the introduction of the Early Years Professional status (EYPS) by the UK government in the Childcare Act of 2006, an attempt to add more value through the introduction of Early Years teacher status was introduced by the UK government in the Early Years Workforce Strategy (DfE, 2013): however, there has been a lack of support regarding their promise for their earlier vision of having one qualified Early Years Professional status leading practice in every Early Years setting (NDNA, 2018). Therefore, the government is exhibiting a ‘laissez faire’ approach to early years pedagogy by not recognising experienced Early Years practitioners in England.
However, some initiatives exhibit a highly prescriptive approach within the Foundation Phase. An inherent challenge for the Early Years sector can be seen within two other concepts to raise the quality of teaching in the Early Years provision, essentially by criticising the Early Years practitioners’ skills and competence (Osgood, 2006b). One incorporates the encouragement of reflective practice, as part of Early Years trainee teachers’ training (Eaton, 2016), which presents an issue as it adds to an already-heavy work load. Secondly, the introduction of the requirement of mathematics and English for Early Years practitioners has increased the struggle with recruitment retention, because most applications for Early Years practitioners and teachers do not meet the government criteria of GCSE grade C in English, mathematics and science as identified in Early Years Career (Kelly, 2016).
Reflective Practice 
When gaining Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) in England, there is a requirement for the Early Years teachers to undertake reflective practice (Eaton, 2016) during their placement programmes in order to focus on the teaching methods used and to evaluate these methods. In this way, they can improve and make better their current practice to improve the children’s learning. However, the Early Years is becoming too institutionalised within a culture of power and control (Foucault, 1977), whereby we want to know what teachers are thinking and why they are thinking and practicing the way that they do. I believe that every time a person completes a reflective account during the course of their training, the reflective enquiry has the motivation to dig deep into our emotions and feelings (MacMurray, 1962). Therefore, reflections can stir up different forms of emotions beyond our control that we may need to learn to deal with (McGhee, 2000). This can lead teachers to lose sight of who they are caring for and the very reason that Early Years teachers have been initially trained for, which is to have a broad spectrum of vision and looking to the children for new ideas, not to develop new theories for reflection to reflect upon or to rely too much upon reflection as the beginning and the end of good quality teacher and lose sight of good practice (Clegg et al., 2002; Eaton, 2016). Therefore, the prescriptive process (Foucault, 1977), and requirements of reflective practice, exhibits that the UK government in this area does not exhibit a laissez-faire approach. 
Requirement of Mathematics and English
The governing body of education in England need to re-think the Early Years Practitioner qualification and its requirement for practitioners to have a minimum of a grade C in English and Mathematics to be counted in the legal staff-to-child ratio. As noted by Sue Learner (2016), there has been a massive number of ‘would be’ Early Years practitioners who have been dropped due to this requirement, and this is only the beginning. There is a recent concern from the higher education sector, as the applications for the early years degree has plummeted due to the requirement of English and mathematics at GCSE grade C (Gaunt, 2018, p.30). Thus, many universities have had to cancel their Early Years degree courses due to the lack of applicants (Gaunt, 2018). This is in opposition with the huge promises made by the government on increasing the quality of Early Years work force by placing a qualified Early Years teacher in each Early Years setting to lead practice (DfE, 2017). The implication of this, as suggested by Steven McIntosh, Save the Children director of UK Poverty, is that ‘children who start behind, stay behind’ (Gaunt, 2018, p.30). All the above Suggests to me that UK government does not show a laissez-faire approach, as the government is adamant in having its way with the requirement of the above criteria.
The Value of Early Years Teacher Status
Clifford Geertz (1973) talks about the necessity of employing a dense language of value in an effort to justify one’s experience. This kind of language is inescapable because we are agents in the world, which involves adjudicating through our observations, thoughts, feelings, relationships, and behaviours. My own interest lies primarily on listening, connecting and giving children attention, but not to the exclusion of the others. This is supported by Carr and Kemmis (1988), who offer a detailed discussion of ways of looking at our activity in social sciences, such as the issues of retention and achievement in the Early Years sector as identified by Catherine Gaunt in Nursery World (Gaunt, 2018): she suggests that ‘New analysis of the early years workforce reveals a worrying time for the sector, with a downward trend in the proportion of qualified staff and the prospect that in the future the workforce may be less qualified than it is now’ (p.1). 
This ‘downward trend’ is because the government are not recognising the National Vocational Qualifications level 3 Educator Diploma (NVQ 3) held by practitioners with many years of experience, when compared to newly qualified Early Years teachers (EYTS) who have come into the profession via different routes. For example, they may have a degree containing different subject knowledge to that contained in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Once the Early Years Teacher Status has been achieved there is an automatic quality or license to practice without realising that some of these teachers have gained the qualification outside of the Early Years industry and, therefore, do not have the experience or the knowledge content needed for teaching children from birth to five. Therefore, the government has failed to realise the existing experienced Early Years work force and the value they bring to early childhood care and education: some practitioners with twenty or more experience feel the government does not care or are not really worried about their input, so they feel worthless (Bonetti, 2018). Additionally, Early Years teaching positions do not hold the same value as mainstream primary and secondary school teachers in a monetary sense, as they cannot demand the same pay conditions as the mainstream teachers, (Bonetti, 2018). The government cannot keep ignoring the fact that these practitioners have gone to university, gained the training and have achieved the requirement to work with children from birth to five; they need to make this clear to the practitioners. This exhibits a ‘free-for-all’ attitude with little interest and interference from the government (Kitchener, 2016).
Additionally, nurseries do not have the financial resources to retain or recruit at a high cost due to the lack of applicants of Early Years Teachers and practitioners. Further to that, experienced practitioners are leaving the sector due to ‘underfunding’ (Kelly, 2016, p.1). Therefore, the government’s vision of having one qualified Early Years Teacher per setting and supporting Early Years sector to help recruit and keep qualified practitioners is still not fulfilled as the Early Years sector still struggle, as highlighted in the March 2017 Government Early Years Workforce Strategy report (DfE, 2017). The UK government exhibits a laissez-faire attitude by not paying attention to the needs of the Early Years sector and not responding to the urgent needs of more qualified practitioners; as cited by Catherine Gaunt in Nursery World, ‘the Government is putting the 30-hour childcare policy in jeopardy by failing to listen to providers’ (p.3). The Early Years having to deliver the 30 hours free funded care and education is a huge burden for the early childhood care and education (ECCE) (Kitchener, 2016): this has created a ‘free’ market, suggesting ‘some sort of liberation’ without thinking of the consequences of the staff qualifications, availability and the requirement in terms of quantity of Early Years teachers needed to fill these vacancies (Kitchener, 2016 p.74-5). This has resulted in a government lack of interest or urgency and governing educational organisations don't really get involved with pedagogy. The UK government need to pay more attention to their promise to improve the current status of the Early Year workforce, (Bonetti, 2018). 
Conclusion
On the one hand, the government in England is overly-prescriptive with their requirement of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, 2017) in stating the seven area of learning, as well as the setting of regulated inspection processes. Therefore, to some extent the notion of the Foundation Phase in England leading to laissez-faire approach is contentious because of the prescriptive nature ‘of the rules that come into play’ as described by Foucault in (Ball, 2013) and the nature of the UK government in administering the EYFS (2017). There are prescriptive requirements of the EYFS’s seven areas of learning and development in assessing children against the set early learning curriculum targets (EYFS, 2017, p.14) and the mandatory requirement for academic preparation acting as a validation for children when moving to reception class (Faulkner and Coates 2013). However, the UK Government leads its Early Years workforce with a laissez-faire approach as it is not concerned with recruitment and retention, despite the staff shortage (Learner, 2016). 
Ultimately, how far the government exhibits a laissez-faire approach through the Foundation Phase is complex, given the structure of Early Years provisions and the kind of service it provides to the community. It could be appropriate to argue for and against the government in England for having a ‘hand-free’ approach in certain areas of Early Years provision, for example where the qualified teacher status is concerned (as identified in Bonetti, 2018; Kitchener, 2016; Bell and Gilbert, 1996; Bell and Cowie, 1999).
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