How extending free childcare could harm social mobility

I blogged at the Sutton Trust website and HuffPo on problems with the government's free childcare plans

It is nearly twenty years since a long-cherished goal of early years campaigners was delivered by the Blair government: the right to free nursery education for all three- and four-year olds. Since then, much has changed in early years policy: mothers are entitled to more time off and families have benefited from tax credits. Sure Start children’s centres brought many services together too.

The free entitlement was to 12.5 hours a week of early years education, planned locally but largely delivered through private and voluntary providers (at the same time as vouchers were scrapped). That universal entitlement increased to 15 hours in 2010, and was extended in 2013 to less advantaged two-year-olds. The latest figures show that 93% of three year olds and 97% of four-year olds are taking advantage of the free provision. This month, children in working families had that entitlement extended to 30 hours a week.

But while extended access to childcare may do a lot to help the labour market and working mothers, and certainly represents a major increase in the state’s commitment to childcare support, it may make it harder to improve social mobility through such early interventions. The government is trying to introduce this at a time of austerity, so quality could suffer.

And that’s the nub of the problem. A third of eligible children – those from the poorest 40% of society – don’t currently take up free provision at age two and a tenth of poorer families don’t take up their entitlement at age three. The government has halted a commitment to improving the qualifications of those working with young children even though a third of such key workers haven’t got decent GCSE passes in English and maths.

Sure Start and children’s centres are being closed or stripped of many of their functions. Some benefits are being reduced for children, particularly in larger families. And funding is being reduced for the higher quality more expensive providers – maintained state nursery schools and reception classes – alongside the removal of a requirement that they should have a qualified teacher in the classroom.

The combination of these changes could see a reduction in quality and a widening of school readiness gaps just as there is some evidence that gaps have started to narrow. In particular, the restriction of the 30 hours to working parents could make it even harder for the children of mothers not in work to gain the developmental skills that could help them escape a cycle of disadvantage.

That’s why today’s new Sutton Trust report, Closing Gaps Early is so timely. Prof Jane Waldfogel and Dr Kitty Stewart praise the progress that has been made under successive governments but sound a strong cautionary note about what’s happening now.

There has been a growing recognition of the link between good quality nursery provision and school readiness. Our Sound Foundations report identified four key dimensions of good quality pedagogy for all children under three: stable relationships and interactions with sensitive and responsive adults; a focus on play-based activities and routines which allow children to take the lead in their own learning; support for communication and language; and opportunities to move and be physically active. Crucially, it stressed the importance of knowledgeable and capable practitioners, supported by strong leaders.

With gaps still as high as 17 percentage points between rich and poor children on the foundation profile when they start school, we can’t afford to relax the drive to improve the quality of early years staff and access for disadvantaged children to good provision from the age of two. One suggestion in today’s report is that all children should have three terms of very high quality provision prior to reception class, as the benefits of the longer entitlement are going disproportionately to children who are already doubly advantaged, by birth month and family background. If money is limited, it shouldn’t be spread too thin.

There is no doubt that the extended access to free childcare for working families is a real boon for those in work, especially those from modest incomes facing cuts in other family and tax credits, but as the new policy comes into effect it is vital that we keep a close eye on all its impacts, and ensure that lack of money doesn’t lead to loss of quality. If that happens, the progress of nearly twenty years could be placed in jeopardy and it Is the poorest children who will be the losers.

Good foundations

Good news from the Government's much-maligned 'nappy curriculum' today - or more properly, the Early Years Foundation Stage - which seeks to ensure that toddlers know their ABC, can count and have gained a range of important social skills by the age of six.

Critics who believe that only middle class children have the right to these skills at an early age - before it is too late - argue that it is far too early to expect (working class) children to learn the alphabet or count: far better to wait until they are seven or eight, and illiterate. Their own kids have already learnt these skills at home, of course.

So I was riveted to read an account in the Daily Telegraph which mentions in passing the fact that 23,000 more children are reaching a good level of development than prior to the introduction of the EYFS in September 2008 but complains instead that

More than one-in-six boys cannot write their own name or other simple words such as “mum”, “dad” and “cat” after a year of school – double the number among girls.
They are also much less likely to know the alphabet, count to 10, sing simple nursery rhymes from memory, dress themselves and work well with other children in class.

An explanation is then offered by Sue Palmer, who doesn't think children should do anything but play until well into primary school:

[She] said boys were developmentally behind at birth and needed time to “run
about and play, which is what they need to catch up”.

So, let me get this clear. Some boys don't know their alphabet or can't count because they aren't in the playground enough and are being forced to recite the alphabet by nasty nursery teachers. And the fact that despite the gap, a growing number of boys as well as girls can do these things satisfactorily hasn't anything at all to do with the fact that they are now being taught them more effectively in nursery school.

The real message from the OECD report

Today's newspapers are full of tales of educational woe drawn from the latest OECD survey, Education at a Glance. For the Times, it vindicates their eccentric campaign to stop government efforts to create a level playing field for poorer toddlers, though the report actually says of the UK in this respect:

90% of children 4 and under (as a percentage of the population aged 3 to 4) are participating in pre-primary programmes (OECD average 70%). This is all the more impressive [my italics] as the rate increased from 51% in 1998 to 90% in 2006.

It is true that class sizes are a little skewed in the UK, though teaching assistant numbers are relatively high, and there is no evidence that a difference of one or two students in older primary classes has any impact on standards, despite right wing think tank Civitas's wish to divert masses of government funding to the project.

But what the papers neglect is a more worrying trend in the UK: our undergraduate population is growing at a relatively slower rate than other OECD countries, despite a strong level of vocational degree entry.

In 2000 the UK had, at 37%, the fourth highest graduation rates for tertiary-type A programmes, well above the OECD average which then stood at 28%. Although the graduation rate in the UK had increased to 39% by 2006, the OECD average increased at a much faster rate to 37%, with eleven countries showing now higher graduation rates: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden. Rates of current participation suggest that more countries are likely to surpass UK graduation rates. The increase in tertiary enrolment between 1995 and 2005, which will influence future graduation rates, was, at 33%, considerably below the OECD average level of 40% and well below increases in the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Sweden and partner countries Brazil, Chile, Estonia and Israel, that ranged from 44% to 161% during the same period.

Could the fact that this trend is virtually ignored by our papers have anything to do with the years they have spent bemoaning our relatively modest rates of student growth, seeing them as a dimunition of standards rather than a necessary contributor to our global competitiveness?

Teachers back early curriculum

Some of our newspapers and children's authors have been making a huge fuss about the the early years - or foundation stage - curriculum. But a poll in today's TES shows that teachers back it, with 88% of 1480 teachers polled supporting it in principle, and 64% believing it will improve the overall experience of children in the early years, against 18% believing it won't. Remarkably, many teachers even believe it will mean more time playing outside with no change to the time spent on reading and writing. This is a huge boost for children's minister Beverley Hughes, who has doggedly defended the curriculum in recent years. And a sharp rebuke to those critics who would prefer to limit a decent early years education to those who get it in supportive home environments.

Denying a fair chance for all

It may well be the case that the government has too many targets in its Foundation stage. And middle class parents whose children are unlikely to grow up illiterate and educationally disadvantaged should, perhaps, have much more choice to send their offspring to Steiner or Montessori schools. But to imagine that the very children whose poor education the Times and other media bemoans several years later will ever catch up without a decent early years education - as today's letter from children's authors does - is fantasy of the first and worst order. If the government doesn't set some minimum pre-literacy goals - to be achived by age seven - do we really believe that every child will have a fair chance of success? Of course, play matters. But seven year olds should be reading too. They might even advance to Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo if they are not consigned to poor literacy from the start.

Why we should not confine early learning to the middle classes (2)

The annual whinge about the Government's goals for nursery education took place recently. Here's another good reason why we cannot afford to confine early learning to the middle classes.

Why we should not confine early learning to the middle classes

Today's Times rails against the curriculum that ministers have approved for children under five. The normally sane leader writers on the paper seem to have been hoodwinked by some child psychologists into believing that it is 'a threat' for children to learn some of the basics of the alphabet, phonics and how to count while they are enjoying the taxpayer-funded early years education that this government has made a free entitlement for all. It is - let us remember - not compulsory to attend school before the age of five; and any nursery wishing to rely solely on fees is free to do so and set its own curriculum; these proposals are also rather more flexible than the Times report suggests. Moreover, they are informed by a very substantial research project, which has at least as much weight as the academics quoted in the Times, and which has already shown that the benefits of a good early education are long-lasting.

Given that the differences in achievement in later years which it and other papers bemoaned are all too often evident by the age of five - by which time it can be too late to rectify them - what would really threaten toddlers would be for the government to agree with middle class parents and those who oppose education for the under-7s, most of whom happily introduce their three and four year-olds to the alphabet and numbers at home (apparently without 'untold damage') through costly educational games, and deny poorer children the same developmental and educational opportunities. There may well be a case for cutting the 72 goals; there may also be a case for enabling a more proportionate inspection system. What there is not a case for is stripping the educational element from early years education, and making the taxpayer-funded experience entirely a matter of childcare or play. Nursery education is about ensuring that all children are ready to learn; it must continue to be.