2 Maximising the benefits for all
children
10. In recent years results for children at age
five have improved, but little improvement has been recorded in
Key Stage One results at age seven. The Department accepted that
there was strong evidence of the beneficial impact from the entitlement
at age five but less clear evidence for later years. It explained
that looking at assessment results was important but for longer-term
impacts it was inconclusive because "as a child or young
person goes through the system, so more and more factors pile
on their success or otherwise".[17]
11. Our expert witness from the Institute of
Education said that the measures used at age five and at age seven
were quite different, and that the Key Stage One assessment was
now based on a teacher assessment. She wondered whether schools
might assess at a local level at 5 to demonstrate greater added
value for the school between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.[18]
She believed that there was strong evidence of long-term benefits
of high-quality early years provision for children. Poor levels
of vocabulary at age three had long lasting effects which could
be addressed through the pre-school sector. Research had shown
that high-quality early years provision had a long-term impact
on reducing anti-social behaviour.[19]
12. The Pre-school Learning Alliance believed
that in terms of long-term impact the importance of the investment
was "beyond question".[20]
However the Chief Executive of Solihull Council felt that more
needed to be done to answer the question as to whether the effects
persisted over time. The Department accepted that it needed to
do further research to gauge the longer term effect of investment
in early years provision..[21]
13. The Department stressed that involving and
working with parents was important to maximise the benefits for
children. It explained that it was revising the Early Years Foundation
Stage curriculum with the explicit purpose of making it more accessible
to parents, and that it also wanted to see providers engage better
with parents. The Department acknowledged that more needed to
be done at all levels in the system so that parents were well
informed.[22] The Department
told us that it did want to make more information available to
parents about performance of providers and of different local
authorities, but that this would need careful thought as the information
"will be quite complex".[23]
14. The Pre-school Learning Alliance was concerned
that many parents do not fully know or understand what the free
entitlement to pre-school education comprised. The Chief Executive
told us that he had recently looked at a nursery with his child
and was told he must pay fees even though he just wanted the free
entitlement. When he had questioned this, the staff member told
him that it had thousands of children coming through its settings
every year and that none had been given the free entitlement without
a payment of top-up fees from parents.[24]
15. The Department told us that it was wrong
that some parents were having to pay top-up fees. The Department
did not think this practice was widespread. When we provided further
examples of similar problems found on Mumsnet the Department told
us that it was ready to follow up the cases raised. [25]
The Department told us that it had reacted when parents had approached
it directly, or through their MP, with similar complaints. However,
the Department had not followed up any cases from a parental survey
which had identified this as a problem because the survey did
not contain individuals' details.[26]
16. Research suggests that high quality early
learning can have lasting benefits for children and that it can
have disproportional benefit for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.[27]
The Head of Rowland Children's Centre, Haringey told us that her
nursery school was in an area of deprivation and that a third
of the children had significant needs. She said that all children
made progress and that this continued as they moved on to primary
school. The children's centre was working with around three-quarters
of all the families in their area (1,000 out of 1,300). The most
recent available data from the Department's survey of parents
showed that 77% of the most disadvantaged children accessed the
entitlement, significantly lower than the average of 86% for all
children.[28]
17. The NAO found that areas with higher levels
of deprivation had lower levels of quality in their early years
provision. The Department told us that reducing inequalities was
critical and that the gap was closing. It also told us that its
funding formula required all local authorities to provide more
money for areas of deprivation while acknowledging that this varied
widely between different local authority areas and was sometimes
as low as 3 pence per child per hour. The Department believed
that increased transparency would help improve the situation as
it would encourage local authorities to improve their performance.
It also believed the local authorities should consider removing
funding from providers that fail to improve.[29]
17 Q 112; C&AG's report, para 13 Back
18
Qq 1, 6-7 Back
19
Q 24 Back
20
Q 23 Back
21
Q 25, 112 Back
22
Qq 1, 48, 116 Back
23
Q 61 Back
24
Q 22 Back
25
Qq 71-77 Back
26
Qq 134-137; C&AG's report, para 2.7 Back
27
C&AG's report, para 4 Back
28
Qq 16-18, C&AG's report, para 11 Back
29
Qq 50-53, 67-70, 101-105; C&AG's report, Figure 7 Back
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