INTRODUCTION
1. A quiet revolution has been taking place in the
education of children in the early years. The greatly increased
number of places for four year olds has led to practically universal
provision for this age group. The number of places for three year
olds has also greatly increased. The "Sure Start" programme
has been introduced to improve the chances of children from relatively
disadvantaged backgrounds from the very beginning of their lives.
The responsibility for inspecting childminders has been transferred
to OFSTED by the Care Standards Act 2000. The Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority has issued detailed curriculum guidance for
what is now termed the foundation stage (3 to 5+ years).
2. The Education Sub-committee announced on 28 July
1999 its intention to carry out an inquiry into Early Years Education.
The Sub-committee published detailed terms of reference on 28
October 1999 and invited the submission of written papers by 17
January 2000. The initial terms of reference were:
The inquiry will examine:
the appropriate content of Early Years education, taking into account the recently published
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) Early Learning Goals;
the way in which it should be taught;
the kind of staff that are needed to teach it and the qualifications they should have;
the way quality of teaching and learning in the early years is assessed; and
at what age formal schooling should start.
The inquiry will focus on education, although it will take account of other relevant early years issues including for instance the potential impact of the Government's "Sure Start" programme, currently being piloted, on early learning. The broad age range with which the inquiry is concerned is three years old up to Year 1 of primary school.
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As the inquiry proceeded, a very strong case was
made in the evidence received for extending our inquiry to cover
in addition the years from birth to three years of age.[1]
The final sentence of the terms of reference was amended by the
Sub-committee to read "The broad age range with which the
inquiry is concerned is from birth to eight years of age".[2]
3. The Education Sub-committee invited a number of
experts to a private seminar on 2 February 2000. Following the
seminar, we appointed Professor Christine Pascal of University
College, Worcester, Mrs Rosemary Peacocke, the Chair of the Oxfordshire
Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership, and Professor
Kathy Sylva of the Department of Education, University of Oxford,
as specialist advisers to the Sub-committee for the Early Years
inquiry. We are very grateful to these distinguished experts for
their invaluable assistance.
4. We held six formal oral evidence sessions at Westminster
between March and June 2000, and we also took oral evidence in
public at County Hall, Oxford on 4 April 2000. The oral evidence,
which has already been made public in printed form and on the
Internet,[3]
is re-published with this Report. Lists of witnesses and written
papers included in the oral evidence appear at page xlvi. We received
a number of other written papers, several of which are published
as Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence published with this Report.[4]
A list of those papers which we have placed in the Library is
at page li. We are grateful to all those who contributed to the
inquiry.
5. Our inquiry was greatly helped by a paper prepared
by Ms Sarah-Jayne Blakemore for the Parliamentary Office of Science
and Technology (POST)[5],
which summarised scientific research on the development of the
brain and the psychological development of children, and studies
that have compared the outcomes of different types of pre-school
education, and discussed the implications of this research for
Early Years education policy.[6]
We are very grateful to Ms (now Dr) Blakemore for her study, and
to the British Psychological Society which funded her secondment
to POST.[7]
6. The Sub-committee's visit to Oxfordshire on 4
April included visits to Early Years settings in Abingdon, Radley
and Oxford. The Sub-committee also visited Bristol on 10 May and
Haringey on 15 June 2000. We are grateful to all those whom the
Sub-committee met on their visits, and especially to Mr Graham
Badman, the Chief Education Officer of Oxfordshire County Council
(a former specialist adviser to the Sub-committee), Ms Airlie
Fife, Bristol City Council Education Adviser, and Ms Zena Brabazon,
Head of Early Years and Play at the London Borough of Haringey,
each of whom enabled the Sub-committee to get the maximum benefit
from visiting a range of Early Years settings in the limited time
available.
7. The Education Sub-committee also had three days
of meetings and visits in Denmark from 6 to 8 June 2000. The education
of very young children goes to the heart of any society's most
basic values. The parallels and contrasts which the Sub-committee
encountered in Denmark on a range of issues—from families
where both parents go out to work, to the roots of adult illiteracy,
to the assimilation of asylum-seekers—gave rise not only
to useful insights into alternative approaches to bringing up
children but also to fundamental questions about the assumptions
which underpin the British approach to educating children. We
are grateful to Mr Philip Astley, the British Ambassador in Copenhagen,
and his staff, particularly Mr Peter Cook and Ms Marianne Hedegård,
for arranging a most enlightening programme for the Sub-committee's
short visit. Notes on all the visits, at home and abroad, appear
among the Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence published with
this Report.
8. We adopt in this Report the terminology used in
other recent publications in this area, such as the Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority's Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation
Stage.[8]
Particular terms used include:
