Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 395)
WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000
PROFESSOR KATHY
SYLVA, PROFESSOR
IRAM SIRAJ-BLATCHFORD
AND PROFESSOR
PAM SAMMONS
Charlotte Atkins
380. Can you just define "resources"
for us?
(Professor Sylva) Yes. In the environmental rating
scale we make assessments of the resources which are available
and we pay particular attention to resources available for the
spread of abilities and interests. It is very hard for a low resource
centre to have books and instruction toys, dressing up, science
investigation, across all the ability ranges. It is very hard
to score very high on the environmental rating scale if you do
not have a rich array of resources which will cater to a wide
ability range and interest range.
Chairman
381. So staff do not come into the resource
at all?
(Professor Sylva) Staff come into the resource and
they come into the resource in terms of how they interact with
the children. One of our criteria for instance is if a staff member
asks a child a question, does the staff member stay around to
hear the answer? We assess the quality of the interactions, the
social interactions that the staff have with children, the quality
of the educational interactions, and the quality of the learning
resources. We have not directly addressed ratio or salary yet
and that, I am sorry, will not be available until September.
Mr Foster
382. I am interested in the relationship between
parents, family characteristics, and attainment at entry to school.
You state that children eligible for free school meals had lower
performance on all cognitive measures. Does this add to the argument
that poverty is a major influence on children's attainment from
birth?
(Professor Sammons) We have shown that there was a
relationship between a range of characteristics when the children
were three and again at five. Free school meals does show up.
It is not nearly as strong as some of the other measures which
are for example the parents', particularly the mother's, educational
qualifications and some of the aspects of the home learning environment.
None the less it does pick up. We did not have family income data
when children were three. The first time we could get it was when
they went to school and we got the free school meals data as an
additional measure for our sample. Disadvantage does have an impact
and we have demonstrated that, but it is not as strong as the
impact of the educational background of the parents. Clearly the
two do have a relationship but we look at the net influence of
poverty compared with that of all the other background characteristics.
(Professor Sylva) We have shown that the impact of
the social environment of the home and the occupational environment
at three is greater than it is at school entry because the pre-school
effect has kicked in. The social impact is greater therefore at
three than it is at five if the child has been to pre-school education.
It remains to be seen at the end of Key Stage 1 whether the primary
schools keep up this excellent rate that the pre-schools have
made of reducing social disadvantage.
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) There are probably implications
for parent involvement in Sure Start in some of the things that
we are finding. For instance, we know that the children of parents
who are conducting particular educational activities with their
children at home are having highly cognitive and social behavioural
gains, activities such as reading with the child, taking the child
to the library regularly, playing with alphabet and numbers, basically
spending a lot of time talking with their child. Songs and nursery
rhymes we all know aid phonological awareness and so on. There
are implications there for the way we support parents and work
with parents to work with their children. One of our most important
findings to date is that there is this heavy impact of social
and family characteristics and background but that the educational
environment that parents create can span across the different
backgrounds to create a positive outcome.
Chairman
383. You can measure poverty, and we have the
question of backgrounds. You can see that early years experience
counteracts that to some extent, but what you are saying, reading
between the lines of your answer to Michael, is that it is getting
through to the parent, educating the parent, that is vital. Is
that what you are saying?
(Professor Sylva) It would be wrong to conclude that
it is just educating the parent. We know that the quality of the
pre-school affects the narrowing of the gap. The gap narrows in
high quality pre-schools. It does not narrow in low quality. We
have evidence that the quality of the pre-school narrows the gap
and helps to prepare the child for school. We also have evidence
that the family background matters as well, but the family background,
although it is the most important issue, is not the only one.
When you control for that you still have an added impact of pre-school
experience.
384. What we are interested in is that although
you said you cover birth to three, the evidence we have seen in
early excellent centres on a couple of occasions when we visited
was that what really seems to be their strength is that they get
mothers in with tiny babies and start interacting with those mothers
very early on. What you are saying in a sense is that although
it is very important you cannot really evaluate that because that
is not within the scope of your study.
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) It is not, but if you
look at the summary of research on all kinds of interventions
with young children birth to three and three plus, you can see
that there is less evidence that, say, just home visiting programmes
have a kind of effectiveness outcome. There is more evidence of
early education intervention having an outcome. Having said that,
those programmes that include some parent support do the best
in terms of long term outcomes. What I would want to say is maybe
it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition in interventions.
Mr Foster
385. From what you have said about this narrowing
of the gap from three to starting school, you would applaud initiatives
like Sure Start and early excellent centres?
(Professor Sylva) Absolutely.
386. As the way in which opportunity can be
extended for a whole range of people?
(Professor Sylva) Absolutely. It is not either/or.
When Iram said parent involvement and parents as the children's
educators, that is necessary but it is not sufficient. Most of
the studies in the world show that pre-school also has a measurable
contribution.
(Professor Sammons) It will not surprise the Committee,
I am sure, that no one policy initiative—you need a basket
if you like, a combination—would be likely to be sufficient.
There were implications from this research about the nought to
three age range. There were implications for the home learning
environment and how we can work with parents. There were implications
for the quality of pre-school provision and how different aspects
of quality can help to promote children's progress by the time
they get to school, and there will be implications as we follow
the children through school, so it is going to be a range of strategies,
a range of implications, that will have a beneficial effect.
Chairman
387. What would you say to parents out there?
This is on the record. What do you say to parents out there about
how best to develop their children in the best possible way? What
is the recommendation that you make? What is it that parents should
do for their child in those early years?
(Professor Sammons) Lots of talking.
(Professor Sylva) Take them to the library.
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) If we define as "best"
being something that they can benefit from now and later on in
school and in terms of school readiness, then we have some very
clear criteria. Issues around cognitive development, self-regulation,
trusting relationships, working on co-operation and empathy and
physical health, these things over and over again in studies have
been shown to be the five key factors that promote successful
schooling later on. Work around that is happening in Sure Start.
388. Are you also saying get them into a quality
pre-school as well?
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) That can be part of it,
certainly for children whose parents are under stress and are
going to have difficulty in delivering those aspects. Another
study that I want to bring to your attention is Duncan 98,
which showed that three-year-olds brought up in poverty were disadvantaged
in education in later years compared to siblings when the parents'
conditions had changed and they had become more affluent. Children
in the same family where parents' circumstances changed later
on did better, but those who had been in that condition up to
the age of three continued to have difficulties. In terms of our
supporting Sure Start, yes, we certainly would.
Charlotte Atkins
389. This is your opportunity now to say what
you think the key findings in your study have to say to policy
makers and practitioners. We have done parents. What comes out
of your study which we should pick up on now in our report?
(Professor Sylva) We think that our study has shown
that early childhood education can make a difference and can help
children have a better start to school. Our study has also shown
that the home environment can really make a difference and ours
is the first study in Britain to show that more important than
the mother's educational qualifications is what the mother does
with the child. No other study has shown this before. Education
matters, qualifications matter, but if the mother reads to the
child, plays rhyming games, sings songs, talks about letters and
sounds, and takes the child to the library, these behaviours at
home are more important and can compensate for a low educational
level. That is the message to Sure Start because our children
were three when this had already operated and we could see the
difference. There are messages to Sure Start, there are messages
about provision, and we find when we predict which children are
going to do well and which children are not going to do well it
is the particular centre, and we identified particular centres
and they are high quality centres with a range of provision with
staff who talked to children in enabling ways, who bothered to
listen if they asked them a question and who extend their play.
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) Watch this space for
this study. We are only halfway through it, but certainly what
we know up to now and from other research to support it is that
reading with children, educational activities in the home, supporting
parents, are vital for practitioners and policy makers. The curriculum
content is important and knowledge about the curriculum content
and pedagogy is vital of how you deliver that. Creating a quality
environment is important. A literacy enriched environment is vital.
Phonological awareness, child centred approaches, interactions,
allowing children some degree of initiative is vital, all in the
context of a firm but loving environment which sets consistent
boundaries.
Chairman
390. Pam, do you want to say anything? No-one
has asked you about what you would expect from policy makers.
The Government is going to spend some more money in this area.
What would you spend it on?
(Professor Sammons) Clearly governments have to make
policy. They cannot wait for researchers always to have their
findings but we do try to feed our findings into the DfEE as they
come through. In terms of spending extra resources I think Sure
Start is a very good candidate but so also are ways of improving
the quality of the pre-school environment. We have already addressed
the issue of resources, but the types of provision that are scoring
low in terms of quality characteristics which we have demonstrated
have an impact, we know which ones those are, so it will be ways
of improving the quality in those.
(Professor Sylva) It seems to us, looking at the characteristics
at our centres, that the curriculum content is very important.
Just loving, caring, being a nice person, is not nearly so important
as understanding how children develop and understanding how to
bring them on. They are both important.
391. How much is OFSTED helping in this process
of improving early years?
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) I think that from the
interviews from this study, from the interviews with local authority
co-ordinators of early years, they are finding the findings of
particular settings, in other words OFSTED reports, helpful. It
is what they are doing with them that is helping the centres.
I am not sure that I can comment on what OFSTED is doing and whether
that is valuable or not.
392. You picked up nothing in your whole research
that says it is adding to the process of improvement in early
years?
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) Certainly the way the
OFSTED reports are being used at local authority level, in local
inspection and review centres and the training that has been given
by the early years partnership plans, it is helpful, yes. Everybody
unanimously said that. Equally, they unanimously made some comments
about the shortcomings of the training of OFSTED inspectors and
the rushed way in which certainly the section 5 inspections were
undertaken.
393. Any other points?
(Professor Sammons) Just in terms of resources, our
study will not be able to inform us unfortunately on whether using
the resources for that inspection system is the best way to improve
the quality of pre-school. You would need to consider alternative
approaches. We cannot answer that.
394. Have you got two different kinds of inspection?
Is that right?
(Professor Siraj-Blatchford) No. That is a problem
and I think you have had lots of evidence on that.
395. Thank you very much for that. I have to
say that if we had those cards you hold up for ice skating I would
give you a 10.
(Professor Sylva) We would give you a
10 too.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence.
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