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Baroness Walmsley
That this House takes note of the importance of early years education.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, many years ago someone described this country as an island standing on coal and surrounded by fish. Nowadays the treasure of our country is our people and our future fortune is our children. That is why the way in which we nurture and teach them, especially in the early years, is so important to their and our economic future. But we must not just talk about economics. One of the greatest human pleasures is to hear a happy child giggle or to see healthy children running about and playing sociably together. How sad, and what human waste, when we see children arrive at school undernourished, dull-eyed and stressed and when we see children from less fortunate countries struggling to stay alive, with bellies swollen from malnutrition. So, while we talk about how to look after our own children, let us not forget those for whom to sit down with a glass of milk and an apple in a well equipped nursery would be unimagined luxury.
I am sure noble Lords are all familiar with the mountains of evidence that proved the long-term benefit in human and economic capital of high-quality early years provision based on a social pedagogy model which integrates educational and social development. It pays back six or sevenfold in cash terms and who knows how much more in human happiness and well-being.
So I would like to start at the very beginning: with parents. Parents are the first educators, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that they are well informed and helped to do the world’s most difficult and important job. None of us would dream of taking on a difficult task without some appropriate training, so there should never be any stigma attached to parenting classes. Earlier this year my honourable friend Sarah Teather, then the Minister of State for Children, announced a pilot in three areas offering free parenting classes for all who wanted them. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can tell us how well these classes have been taken up and received by the participants.
Of course, babies are learning every hour of every day, faster than they will ever do again in their lives, and their development proceeds at a most rapid pace until they are three. That is why I believe that what we sometimes call “childcare” is really “early education”, albeit informal education. But they prepare for learning initially through their experience with their principal carers. A child who does not have strong, safe attachment to the principal carer will not be so resilient and able to control his feelings as another child who has been well nurtured. Midwives and health visitors, whose ranks are swelling under this Government, have a key role to play in helping parents who struggle with attachment. Can the Minister say how we are getting on with our target of recruiting an additional 2,500 health visitors?
When young children first enter early years settings, they vary enormously: physically, emotionally and intellectually. Their development may have been impeded because of neglect, ignorance, parental substance abuse or downright cruelty, or it may simply be because of poverty. There is much evidence of the effects of poverty on child development. For example, it has been shown that children from privileged backgrounds hear 23 million more words than those from deprived backgrounds, and this has a profound effect on their communication skills and their ability to learn to read. That is why the Government’s efforts to get families out of poverty through universal credit is so important. An additional £300 million has been secured under universal credit to help with the cost of childcare, and the rules of working tax credit have been changed to remove the 16 hours a week minimum in order to qualify for support with childcare costs. These things will surely help.
However, good quality childcare costs money, so I was delighted recently to receive a letter from the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, in which he assured us that he is working hard within government to ensure that good quality childcare becomes more affordable for parents, but not at the expense of quality. There are many ways of doing this, and my honourable friend Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, is working hard with Elizabeth Truss MP in the childcare commission to find the right way. I was very interested in the Resolution Foundation’s recent proposal that after the 15 hours free entitlement, the next 10 hours could be made available at a subsidised rate of £1 per hour. Twenty-five hours care would make it more worthwhile for mothers to work part-time, so I hope the commission is looking seriously at this. Currently the workforce is losing an unnecessary number of talented women because of the cost of childcare.
However, we must not undervalue those dedicated people who work with our children. They need to be highly qualified and properly paid, so more money needs to be found. The report by Cathy Nutbrown on the early years workforce and the current programme to improve the qualifications of that workforce is a very important factor in ensuring our children get the foundations for good life chances. Can my noble friend the Minister say anything about progress in improving the qualifications of the early years workforce?
We know that the best way of getting a family out of poverty is to remove the barriers preventing parents, who wish to, raising their family’s income by going to work, at least for part of the week, but there is much more to it than just providing affordable nursery places. The right to request flexible working is important, as are counselling to help troubled couples stay together so that they can share the load, employers who allow job-sharing, and adequate shared parental leave after the birth of a child. All have their part to play, and Governments have a role in encouraging all these things and legislating where necessary.
However, especially for struggling families, good quality early years care is essential if their children are not to suffer for the rest of their lives. Graham Allen MP outlined in his report Early Intervention: The Next Steps how a child’s development score at just 22 months can serve as an accurate predictor of his educational outcomes when he is 26 years old. Liberal Democrats have always been vocal on the need for high-quality early education, and that is why I was delighted when Sarah Teather, when she was Minister, announced 15 hours of free early years provision for deprived two year-olds. This will take children into a more stimulating social background where they can learn through play with a much wider variety of toys than they have at home. Initially aimed at the most deprived 20% and later to move to 40% of two year-olds, the programme started this September. This is one of the most significant achievements of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government, but we do not stop there. Our 2010 manifesto outlined a plan to move to 20 hours free childcare for all children over 18 months as soon as the nation’s finances will allow. This may be an aspiration, but it is a good one because quality early years provision benefits all children, but it benefits the poorest the most.
Of course, the Sure Start children’s centres are one of the key achievements of the previous Government, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure the House that tales of the demise of these centres are premature. Sure Start centres are a valued resource and, although some local authorities have merged or moved centres, only 18 have been closed outright, despite the austerity under which most authorities work. The great virtue of these centres is their ability to wrap services around the child. I would contend that one of their most important functions is also to engage with parents, because children should be seen as part of families whenever possible. At the very least, early years settings should be ensuring that parents understand how they work with the children, how the child is progressing and how they can continue the work at home. Some of them also have toy libraries and other services such as English classes, help with benefit or housing queries and help to find a job. Some are the location for parenting classes and mother and baby groups. They understand that help for the family is help for the child. I would encourage my Government to continue to support these centres and help them to develop their reach, especially into the hard-to-reach groups. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister can say something about this.
Some of the centres are now concentrating their services on the poorest families and, although I would ideally like to see a universal service, in times of economic austerity this is right. The Government's social mobility strategy—a high priority of Nick Clegg—has data showing that high ability children from lower social backgrounds are overtaken by children of lower ability from higher economic backgrounds between the ages of five and seven unless there is some intervention to ensure that all children fulfil their potential. This is a waste of human capital that we can ill afford.
One of the Liberal Democrat policies to improve social mobility is the pupil premium. This is about to rise to £900 per qualifying pupil per year and, although the accountability of schools as to how they spend this money clearly needs to be fine-tuned, it is already showing results. But it starts at five. I have often found it odd that we have for years spent more on the education of teenagers than we do on young children where the cost-effectiveness of spending has so clearly been shown to be greater. This is a topsy-turvy way of doing things. That is why my party carried a motion at our party conference in September to extend the pupil premium into the early years as soon as resources allow. It is more expensive, because it requires greater professional expertise, to help children disadvantaged by poverty or disability than fully able children from comfortable homes. But if we are not prepared to pay for that expertise, it will not happen. Interestingly, Barnardo's has just published a report called Mind the Gap which shows that the amount of financial uplift available to help disadvantaged children varies substantially at different stages of their educational journey. The biggest gap is exactly where the Liberal Democrats have proposed to provide more funding; that is at ages three and four. How prescient we were—or was it well informed? As Barnardo’s points out, it would be a pity if all the good work done with disadvantaged two year-olds was allowed to slide when they get to three and four. To enable us to get the best out of the policy on two year-olds, we must be consistent and provide for the most disadvantaged three and four year-olds too.
That brings me nicely to the issue of the transition between early years settings and primary schools. One of the most important issues is summer-born children and “school readiness”, as yet an undefined concept. There has been much research about the birthdate effect; for example, Sykes, Bell and Rodeiro in 2009 and Sue Bingham and David Whitbread published this year by TACTYC. The evidence shown by the Government's recent phonics screening check illustrates the problem very simply. In a single year, the percentage of those born in September reaching the “required standard” is 68% and the percentage born the following August reaching that standard is 47%. It would be helpful to have a similar analysis of the early years foundation stage profile, which does compare boys and girls but does not take account of age differences. I put that to my noble friend the Minister as what would be a welcome development.
These children are not stupid. They are just young. Summer-born children are more likely to be identified as having special educational needs than older children in the same class. In many cases this is wrong but it follows them through their school career leading to a poverty of expectation. Sykes et al also showed that summer-born children are not progressing onto certain routes and into certain levels of education. Although those who get through to the highest levels of education do well, fewer of them ever actually get there. This is serious and it means that we need to take a close look at how we can adjust our early education system to mitigate this disadvantage. It may mean having several entry points into school through the year instead of one. It may mean a different approach to teaching and learning in the first few years of primary education, a social pedagogy model rather than a curricular straitjacket. It should certainly mean understanding how children learn through play and having early years qualified specialists in the classroom who know how to guide children at all stages of development. It may mean looking again at the age at which formal education starts. In those countries where children do not start formal schooling until they are six or even seven, the educational attainment results are better than ours. It is clearly worth looking at their model which places equal value on their care, upbringing and learning. What is sure is that formal education should not start too early, whatever the setting.
In ending, I can do no better than describe my aspiration for our children in the mission statement of the British Association for Early Childhood Education. It says:
“Members … actively promote the entitlement of every child to developmentally appropriate early years provision which underpins their emotional, social, physical and cognitive development in order to become learners for life”.
I think that is a splendid aspiration and one which I hope my Government will embrace.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington
My Lords, while preparing for this most welcome debate, so ably introduced by my noble friend Lady Walmsley, my mind was inevitably drawn back to my own children's early days, months and years for a wallow in nostalgia and to what seems—possibly with the benefit of hindsight and through rose-tinted spectacles—a productive and happy period, for them and for me. Any of us lucky enough to have children of our own will know that being a parent—even with the support that I had, with two wonderful grandmothers and a pretty good grandfather in the shape of my noble kinsman Lord Jenkin of Roding, and plenty of good advice from my sister and other friends who had already had children—is hard. Even for those of us who are well resourced and well supported it is difficult to know whether we are doing the right thing and bringing up our children in the right way. For those without resources and support, these challenges must feel insurmountable.
In order to put the topic of this debate in context I will concentrate the majority of my remarks on early years development—by expanding on a number of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—and on how without support a child's future can be negatively impacted. In these remarks I would like to pay tribute to the campaigning work and research undertaken by colleagues in another place—by Graham Allen, already mentioned, and by Andrea Leadsom and Frank Field—all of whom have been leading the debate by championing the cause of early intervention.
Increasingly research is showing that it is the earliest days, weeks, months and years of a child's life—and indeed even their time in the womb—that shapes their brain's development and has a lifelong impact on their emotional and mental health. While it does not, of course, excuse criminal or antisocial behaviour, evidence shows that it goes some way to explaining why some children are more liable to end up in a cycle of antisocial and criminal behaviour if they were not given the love, care and attention that children require in their early years.
There are three main benefits in recognising the importance of early years intervention. The first is that prevention is cheaper than cure. By ensuring children that are well cared for and educated when they are young we can reduce problems in later life. The second is that it benefits the country greatly through increased achievement and a fall in antisocial behaviour; and thirdly, by addressing the issue for current generations it breaks the cycle for their children, which will reduce future problems.
Babies are born with large parts of their brains underdeveloped. The social part of the brain only starts to develop at around six months and the height of development for this part of the brain is between six to 18 months old. It is during this very early period that children learn the capacity to be part of a caring relationship and develop mental and emotional stability. Needless to say, good quality brain development is the key prerequisite to good development. If enough importance is not given to this vital lesson, through love and care, these attachments are not formed by the baby and this hinders their emotional capability.
The effective provision of pre-school education project—EPPE, an Oxford University-based early years research project—has found that what parents do is more important than who they are when determining child outcomes. This means that their actions rather than their circumstances are more important when it comes to influencing child development outcomes. Crucial, too, in the jargon, is the home learning environment—activities that take place in the home that aim to stimulate good development. These include reading to children, singing songs and learning through play. Child IQ and key stage 1 attainment is significantly associated with the presence of books and toys in the household. It is the home learning environment which, as evidence shows, is the single most important factor influencing children’s outcomes at age three and five.
Research also suggests that in Britain up to 40% of children are not securely attached by the age of five. This affects their emotional and mental capacities and means that they will struggle to form strong attachments to their own babies.
I would like to share some shocking figures with you. Research shows that 80% of long-term prison inmates have attachment problems that stem from babyhood. There is now evidence to suggest that you can predict two-thirds of future chronic criminals by behaviour seen at the age of two. A New Zealand study showed that a child with substantial antisocial behaviour aged seven would have a 22-fold increased chance of criminality by the age of 26.
Keeping an adult in prison costs around £112 a day, and each looked-after child costs the taxpayer around £347 a day. If, through intervening during the early years—whether this be through increased NHS awareness of the importance of early years education, increasing the quality of childcare and education in nurseries, or teaching parents, especially very young ones, how best to educate, care for and love their children in early years—we can prevent criminal behaviour and save taxpayers’ money. Does my noble friend the Minister not agree that this is worth considering?
Let us look at how early years education and experiences impact on future behaviour. For example, a baby that is not cared for emotionally and educationally will experience raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Excessive amounts of this can damage the baby’s immune system, and there is also evidence to suggest that a baby left to scream throughout babyhood will have a higher tolerance to stress, meaning that in later life they will be more attracted to high risk-taking behaviour than a baby who has only a normal level of cortisol. There is evidence to suggest, for example, that violent criminals have a high tolerance to their own stress levels.
To sum up, a strong start for a child increases the probability of positive outcomes in later life and a weak start increases the likelihood of future difficulties. When compared to the cost of a child who has to be taken into care, or the cost to families and society of a child with behavioural problems caused by a lack of early years love and attention, early intervention is not only kinder but much more affordable. Instead of condemning young people who are emotionally unstable and engage in antisocial behaviour, we need to address and recognise the importance of early years education, and ensure that future generations are given the necessary love and care to allow them to grow up into stable adults capable of reaching their full potential.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for securing this debate and introducing it with such passion and perception. I want to interpret her intentions for the debate slightly differently and discuss in more detail something that she touched upon—early education in developing countries. In doing so I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF UK and a patron of Women and Children First. I want to talk about education in developing countries because many of the issues outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, apply to children all over the world. But for children and parents in developing countries, life is so much more complex, and education can have such an enormous impact. That education must begin early, and it must be funded.
Many children in these developing countries live daily with hunger, disease, conflict, rape and torture. Some have seen their families killed or imprisoned, or their families have simply disappeared. Education, especially for girls, brings hope and possibilities. However, 67 million children do not have the opportunity to go to school, even to primary school.
The ambitious target set for the millennium goals which the UN developed in 2000 is that they should be achieved by 2015. The targets include the eradication of poverty and hunger; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality and improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and, of course, universal primary education. I suggest that all these goals need to be underpinned by education—although I am not, of course, saying that education can do it all.
UNICEF’s annual report for 2011 emphasises the right of all children to survive and grow to realise their full potential. One branch of UNICEF’s work in deprived populations focuses on education by building schools, providing clean water and toilets, training teachers and supplying textbooks and stationery. In 2011, UNICEF UK gave £4.2 million to help children to go to school, many of them for the first time. The programme Girl Effect points out that when a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. An extra year of primary school boosts a girl’s eventual wages by 10% to 20%. Yet one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school. Of the world's 130 million out-of-school young people, 70% are girls. One girl in seven in developing countries marries before she is 15, and a quarter become mothers before they are 18. Girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die in childbirth, and 75% of 15 to 19 year-olds living with HIV in Africa are girls. Girls who marry early report a high incidence of domestic violence.
There is a proven relationship between better infant health and higher levels of schooling among mothers when girls and women have an income. They reinvest 90% of their income in their families as compared to 30% to 40% for a man. A report commissioned by DfID on girls’ education in Africa points out that girls’ education is a critical development issue not only for girls themselves but for the wider well-being of society. Without education, girls cannot realise their social, political and economic rights.
There have been many interventions on getting girls into school and retaining them in education and, of course, particular local circumstances define the type of intervention that might work best. Successful projects include improving the overall education system in a particular country, targeting interventions, political commitment at a national and local level and community-based interventions which encourage parents to support education for their daughters. For there can be cultural barriers in families which do not encourage the education of girls. Yet girls’ education is essential to the success of a country in achieving education and development for all. It sets up a spiral of hope rather than despair.
Development is not just about economics. Education from an early age, especially for girls, enables development. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 has had enormous influence in focusing the right to education for girls and for all. The platform for action at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing addressed the needs and rights of girls. Much has happened to improve educational opportunities for young people and for girls in developing countries. However, a UNICEF survey showed that, while a few children did not want to go to school, some had to stop school so that they could work. Lack of money is an issue and the need to help at home still affects many children.
DfID has supported education programmes in the developing world and long may that continue. This is not about what we get for a fiscal return. We all have a humanitarian duty to support the rights of children worldwide. While, of course, I appreciate the importance of early years education in the UK—there is still much to be done—I thought that it was important to draw your Lordships’ attention again to children who have fewer opportunities and less support. I do not expect the Minister to respond to these concerns. I am sure that he is concerned but it would be too much to expect him to take on yet another brief. I am content to have made the case for the importance of early years education in developing countries.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley on securing this important debate. Her total commitment over the years to ensure that we provide high-quality education for all children has to be praised and admired. Like her, I, too, believe in the important role that early years education plays in determining the development of children’s health and well-being. That happens not just through what takes place in the classroom—building confidence, learning to communicate, or using their imaginations to be creative when they play—but through ensuring that their surroundings and facilities are of the highest standard. That is often overlooked and sometimes it is taken for granted that adequate provisions are in place. I speak specifically about the provision of proper toilet facilities for all children.
Our children spend most of their waking hours at nursery or school and good health habits, as well as bad, are formed in this setting, which in turn shapes behaviour into adulthood. That is very evident among children who suffer from paediatric continence problems, a group that totals around 900,000 young people in the UK. It is essential that we do what we can to address this situation and to help solve this problem, which often starts in the early years.
It is clear that more needs to be done to regulate the quality of toilet provision in early years settings and throughout childhood. I was shocked to discover the current state of school toilet facilities in the UK. A large randomised study found that 23% of schools did not have hot water, 31% had no soap, 35% had missing toilet seats and 25% had missing locks on cubicle doors. It is hardly surprising that UK studies find that between one-third and two-thirds of children avoid using school toilets because they are unhygienic, poorly maintained or lack privacy.
Poor facilities pose a serious infection risk and avoiding going to the toilet causes children to develop continence problems. These problems can lead to long-term health complications, acute hospitalisation and unnecessary costs for the NHS. They also come at a sensitive time of emotional and physical development, leading to low self-esteem, bullying and, sometimes, family problems where children can be punished for this perceived lack of control.
Furthermore, it is recognised that children who try to avoid using the toilet often restrict their drinking during the day. That leads to dehydration, which affects concentration and learning. This means that they are not achieving to their full potential. If children do not drink enough during the day, their bladders do not develop to become large enough to hold liquid when they sleep at night, which leads to bed-wetting and, in turn, causes a lack of confidence and misery.
We need to ask ourselves whether the standards for children’s school toilets are lower than those for adult employees. The answer is yes. Perhaps the Minister can tell us why the Government are currently removing the few regulations in place for children, which will widen this disparity and mean that there is no substantive protection for children. Surely, the Government must ensure that schools provide for all children’s needs, including adequate toilet facilities, and do not concentrate just on academic, sporting and cultural provision.
There is strong public support for improved standards for adequate toilet facilities. A survey from the children’s continence charity, ERIC, conducted with Netmums in 2011, showed that 80% of parents want stronger standards. Recently, support was also shown by 1,200 healthcare professionals, parents and teachers who signed an ERIC petition opposing the Government’s removal of standards.
While I welcome the minimal guidance provided at the early years foundation stage, which includes toileting goals and a recommendation on the number of toilet facilities that should be provided, there is no doubt that overall higher standards are required. The excuse that we need to reduce regulations should not stand in the way of our children’s health and well-being.
The Government have a moral duty to ensure that children have at their disposal high standards for school toilets throughout their early years and school life. These standards should be at least equivalent to those provided for adults in the workplace. This would be simple to deliver and would improve health outcomes for children and reduce unnecessary NHS expenditure in the long term.
Will the Government ensure that the health and well-being of children is safeguarded in this respect? Will they make sure that every school in the country caters for its pupils in a wholly holistic way, putting their essential basic needs first, in order to give children the dignity and the respect that they deserve, which will influence their behaviour for life?
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin and Lady Walmsley, have already referred to the recent neurological research, which has taught us that the later months of pregnancy and the first two to two and a half years of a child’s life are crucial to that child’s future. During this period, up to 80% of a child’s brain development may take place.
Both this Government and their predecessor have realised the importance of this finding. Both have supported a spate of early years projects, which are designed to help parents when things begin to go wrong. I strongly support this emphasis on early intervention and I especially support it where the projects have been well evaluated and have been shown to be effective.
I put my name down to speak today because I want to ask one important question. Is this intervention early enough? Should we not be starting proactively to prepare children for the challenges of adult life while they are still in secondary school?
In 2010, in his report on child poverty to the Government, Frank Field drew attention to the case for children in secondary schools to be prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood. I believe that he was right to suggest that we should build on the natural interest which young adolescents have as they seek to understand more about the adult world into which they inexorably are moving.
One possible reason why the Government apparently have not responded to Frank Field’s proposal—I apologise if I am wrong and they have—is that if young people in secondary schools were taught how to be better parents, it is extremely probable that some of them would tell their own parents about the rotten job that they have done.
My proposal is for a much more broadly based educational exploration of the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities of adult life, led by the interests of the pupils but guided and moderated by teachers who are specially trained and qualified for the job. Such a programme would include not only the existing citizenship, PSHE, SRE and SEAL programmes but much more. It would concentrate on developing the soft skills, such as building self-confidence, relationship skills, emotional and social skills, ability to work as a team or to lead a team, commitment and character capabilities and care and consideration for other people. I believe there should be a special qualification and special training for teachers involved in such a programme if it is to be a success.
Will the Government consider funding one of the existing universities which already offers teacher training to introduce a trial training programme which could form the basis of a qualification for teachers to lead young people in secondary schools as they explore the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities of adult life? I apologise to the Minister for not having given him notice of that question and I realise that he may want to write to me about it.
It is true, of course, that many—perhaps even a majority of—children in this country will learn about the importance of stable and supportive family life and the needs of young children through their own experiences as they grow up in their own families. Alas, however, in this country today, too many children between the ages of 13 and 17 grow up in families where their parents are not able to give them the parenting they need. The causes, which we all know, include alcohol and drug addiction, domestic violence, mental health problems, poverty, family breakdown or instability and the lack of parenting skills. These families cannot avoid denying their children the opportunity to experience and learn about family life and to learn the skills that one day they will need to bring up their own children. Save the Children has estimated that 85% of a child’s success at school depends on the type of support their parents provide at home.
Today in this country, most 13 to 17 year-old children attend secondary school. A wider distribution of the soft skills could be a powerful agent for increasing social mobility and equality in our society today. Why are we not taking the opportunity in school to prepare these adolescent children, who are tomorrow’s parents, for the day when most of them will find themselves looking after their own very young and vulnerable children?
The Government might say that these matters are adequately covered by the PSHE, the SRE and the SEAL programmes in secondary schools. Alas, this is not the case. Recent Ofsted reports speak favourably of PSHE teaching in primary schools; most of them rate at least as satisfactory. However, the same is by no means true for secondary schools. Ofsted says that in too many of these schools today, PSHE is a Cinderella subject, taught—if it is taught at all—by teachers with no training and little interest in the subject. Will the Government take action to ensure that all children in secondary schools are helped to explore, under professional guidance from specialist teachers, the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities which they will face as they become adults, not least the responsibility to provide for their children a loving and caring family environment?
Lord True
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for introducing this important debate. I declare an interest as the leader of a local authority, though as a matter of fact, I do not take part in early years policy by virtue of another interest—or perhaps I should say “love”—as my wife is principal of a Montessori nursery school in my local authority area.
I want to talk about Montessori. When I last spoke on this subject, Montessori educators were afraid that the homogenising drive of what was then the CWDC risked sidelining their own unique approaches and qualifications. These are reflected in the work of 7,500 Montessori practitioners in the United Kingdom. Their basic contention was that Montessori qualifications should be recognised as valid and relevant in their own right. Frankly, no one who knows anything about the contribution of Montessori education worldwide would disagree with that. Therefore, I was grateful to my two noble friends on the Front Bench today for receiving a delegation to discuss this after I had spoken. Improvements then followed. There was an invitation to the Montessori community to participate in Professor Nutbrown’s work, but still some doubts remained. The Nutbrown report was published last spring. It thankfully acknowledged the contribution made by Montessori education and purported to leave 40% of a qualification non-prescribed to relate to diverse ways of delivery, including, theoretically, Montessori.
Since then, the Montessori Schools Association tells me that there has again been a period of silence from the department on the Montessori question. That may be understandable as a new Minister looked into a brief that she had inherited from her predecessor. New qualifications would have to be validated by an examination board and time for validation and the introduction of qualifications in September 2013, clarifying how Montessori and Steiner qualifications would fit into that, is now shrinking. Those sectors await a departmental response and a timeframe for their plans so they can start development work. I share the question of my noble friend. Can the Minister shed any more light on the timescale for operation?
I would also like to say something about the private sector as a whole, on which we depend so much for the delivery of this crucial service. I worry sometimes about the balance between the private sector as it is and the state sector. It seems to me that many people—I hear this from many Montessori educators and others—still feel that there are too many documents of instruction. Even the basic EYFS framework publication runs to 110 pages, not all of it mandatory but increasingly regarded as so. How Ofsted could ever fully inspect all these requirements is unclear to me and the phrasing of the framework is also unclear. For example, the section on food handling by staff requires formal training, but the training is undefined. Is it about needing a level 2 NVQ to peel an apple, as some authorities are saying, or is it just staff awareness more generally?
I would like to say a word about funding. I endorse everything that has been said about the importance of early intervention and early years education, but I am less sanguine than some about the possibility of providing ever more millions of pounds in pursuit of what some see as an aim of universal two to five year-old education for people of all measure of resources when the country is plunging into debt at the rate it is now and we do not even have enough primary school places. The greatest and most cherished influence on my early years education was my mother, to whom I am proud to declare here in this House my lasting debt. I agree with what my noble friend Lady Jenkin said about the selfless contribution of millions of mothers and good parents and how important good parenting is. I recognise and support the evidence of the value of early years education. It would be hard not to, having been married for a third of a century this week to a passionate advocate of it. However, we may need to focus on prime areas of need in some respects and we certainly need to preserve diversity and choice. That includes the private sector. Can the Minister say, therefore, why there is still not equality of treatment between the maintained and private sectors in adult to child ratios?
The so-called free entitlement, whose rationale I understand, is, in some respects a fiction. I spoke about this at length on another occasion and I am not going to repeat it today, but in many areas the so-called free entitlement has never covered the real costs of education and care. Many authorities have turned a blind eye to what is really charging by another name, but if, as is now suggested, the so-called free entitlement is extended or a heavily subsidised rate is extended to 25 hours, then I fear that the non-maintained sector in sessional day care could be eliminated or be forced to go private and close its doors to those seeking financial support. That would be another push towards the two nations we wish to avoid and entail a significant deadweight cost in replacing, at the taxpayers’ expense, private sector settings that might be squeezed out.
Other providers in the Montessori education sector tell me that some local authorities are trying to enforce acceptance of the two year-old scheme by saying that unless providers sign up to it they will lose three and four year-old funding. That sounds like blackmail and I hope that the Minister will condemn it. We must be careful about hyper-regulation. Small independent settings face many burdens, including the new pension requirements, which will be enormous, and the requirement to match flexible working. Of course, many settings could benefit from better qualified staff, but it does not need to entail a one-size-fits-all structure.
In conclusion, I am nervous about aspects of EYPS. The 10-year strategy said that unless sector leaders had EYPS, they would not be able to continue in that role. Is that still the position? The state has not covered itself with glory in every respect in post-war education and should be a little more understanding of the immense contribution of the private sector and perhaps a little less imposing sometimes.
Lord Parekh
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on securing this debate and introducing it so well. Common sense tells us that early years lay the foundations of our intellectual and moral life. If you go beyond common sense and look at research, it confirms what common sense tells us. Obviously, there are some important disagreements among researchers about which early years are more important. A Freudian will say that the important period is between one and two, while Adler and Jung will say that it is between three and four. But that need not concern us. They are all agreed that early years, whichever they happen to be, are important in shaping the adult’s life afterwards.
There is also some disagreement about whether remedial action afterwards can wipe out the damage done in the early years and how effectively it can do that. However, there is agreement among researchers that a good early start is the best policy and that any form of remedial action must be extensive and is inevitably extremely costly. It therefore makes a lot of sense to concentrate on early years rather than to hope that the damage will be wiped out by what we might do to children at a later stage. Early years shape an individual’s life at various levels. They cultivate cognitive skills, train the mind, develop social skills, especially conflict management, between two and three year-olds, which can stand them in good stead when they grow up, and introduce a measure of self-discipline and good habits as to how to organise work, study and life.
The home environment is exceedingly important and plays a crucial role, but it is not enough, because home has a certain intimacy and does not have the kind of impersonality that the school has. Furthermore, a home environment of the right kind is not always available to socially disadvantaged groups. For all these reasons, high-quality pre-school provisions are extremely important, but they are effective and can deliver on their promise only if they satisfy four criteria. First, they must involve parents actively or, if they do not involve them, at least keep them informed about what is going on. Then there is no radical break between the home and the school and between the parental culture and that of the school. All research has shown that parents generally find their association with pre-school provision extremely helpful. It is known that parents who are associated with pre-school provisions generally use less harsh discipline, provide a cognitively more stimulating environment and engage in greater dialogue with their children.
The second condition that pre-school education must meet has to do with something very important, which the term “pre-school” itself tends to obscure. It seems to suggest that what goes on between two and four or two and five is simply a way to keep children preoccupied or is a stepping stone to what goes on in school. To talk about pre-school is to imply that these years have no value in themselves; that they are not autonomous but simply a stepping stone to what happens in primary school, which would therefore decide what goes on in pre-school. Pre-school provisions have their own value and require their own pedagogy, and it is quite important that they should be recognised as having their own social status and command their own respect.
The third condition that pre-school education has to meet has to do with qualified teachers. It is not an area that can be handled by anybody and everybody, and teachers must be qualified up to level 3. They should also be sympathetic to children and they must find ways in which to combine formal teaching with informal teaching. Education at the pre-school level must be child-centred, but that should not mean reducing oneself to the level of a child, as if adults should abdicate their responsibility for educating the child. It should also be easier for teachers engaged in pre-school to acquire qualified teacher status, looking on it as one avenue through which one can acquire that status.
The final condition that pre-school education has to meet is of the following nature. It should aim at curricular content and information but also at certain basic skills and attitudes. Equally important, in a culturally diverse society such as ours, is to get children to feel at ease with the diversity that prevails in society at large. Very often, racist attitudes spring up at that level, when they are reinforced at home. Children notice differences of gender, race and religion. The important question is how they construct, conceptualise and respond to those differences. That is where pre-school education has a very important role to play in countering prejudices that might develop in future. If pre-school education is to play that role, we should also concentrate on the adequate representation of gender and race in the staff in those schools—and by staff I mean not only the teaching staff but the managerial staff.
These basic facts have been grasped by Scandinavian countries, particularly Finland, whose educational system obviously is the envy of the world. If they are properly organised, pre-school educational provisions can also help us overcome class divisions, create a broad sense of social mixing and equality as well as enhance educational performance, and ensure that we produce socially well adjusted men and women.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Walmsley on securing this vitally important debate and declare my interest as president of the National Children’s Bureau. I speak today particularly in my role as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Social Mobility. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that early years education has been an intrinsic part of the group’s focus nor by our finding that, during the earliest years, it is primarily parents and informal carers who shape their children’s outcomes. Like other noble Lords, I underline how investing in good quality and accessible early years education, alongside supporting the critical role of parents and other carers, is the best way to strengthen the still far too shaky ladder of social mobility in the UK. I was fascinated when the Tickell review of the early years foundation stage highlighted the impact that early experiences have on the quality and architecture of the brain. In the first few years of life, 700 new neural connections are formed every single second. I often feel I could do with a few more of those myself.
The importance of some of the softer stuff, such as emotional well-being and confidence, is often so underrated. If a child feels loved, confident and cared for, they will feel that they are able to take the world on. It is a fundamental tenet of social justice that everyone should have an equal chance to get on in life. Few would disagree with this. My key point today is that effective investment in early years education is one of the most cost-effective ways to make a reality of that aspiration. Every child should be able to know and believe that she or he can grow up to be anything they aspire to be, from doctor, teacher, entrepreneur, scientist or soldier to Prime Minister—in other words that they can realise their dreams. Unfortunately, reality in the UK today does not always bear that out.
We know from the Government’s social mobility strategy that the economic environment a child is born into, through no fault of his or her own, has a tangible impact on that child’s educational and life experiences. For instance, only around 30% of children from the lowest fifth of families in terms of income are deemed school-ready by the age of three. Conversely, of children born into families in the highest fifth of incomes, around 65% are deemed school-ready by that age. To put it more simply, the proportion more than doubles.
We have already heard from my noble friend Lady Walmsley that higher ability children from lower social backgrounds are overtaken by lower ability children from more privileged backgrounds between the ages of five to seven, unless something tangible happens to prevent it. This is not the natural order of things. Indeed, it is a national scandal, as well as an untold waste of human potential and talent. If unchecked, this disadvantage perpetuates as children move higher up the age range—indeed, the gap is often widened. My noble friend also set out the very positive changes in this area made by this Government. I was very proud when the then Minister, Sarah Teather, announced 15 hours of free early years provision per week for deprived two year-olds and the subsequent expansion of this provision so that it will cover the 40% most disadvantaged children.
As I mentioned earlier, the all-party group’s work on social mobility has highlighted two issues particularly relevant to this debate—indeed two of the seven key truths, as the report calls them. First, the greatest leverage point for social mobility is between the ages of nought and three. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough; early intervention in children will pay back dividends in later life. I had been intending to spell out some of the very compelling evidence from Graham Allen’s review of early intervention but my noble friend Lady Jenkin has done this very clearly, so there is no need for me to repeat it. Secondly, by building on the focus on early years, we can break the cycle of poverty through education. Children must be ready and able to access learning, and school-ready when they arrive at primary school, if they are to thrive. School readiness is a really important notion.
The all-party group found that countries with better levels of social mobility than the UK tend to have invested in the training and development of their early years staff. Moreover, early years education does not just open the occasional door for children. It can affect their financial well-being through their life, as the Perry pre-school project showed so compellingly for children in the United States. Nearer to home, the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project found that high-quality education enhances children’s development and that disadvantaged children have the most to gain from it. The project’s 2010 report demonstrated that children who had attended high quality pre-school education continued to demonstrate higher achievement at the age of 11.
Because every child is a rounded human being with the full range of needs and talents to nurture, it is important to acknowledge that, well beyond academic achievement or economic success, early years education can also improve children’s later overall well-being. Indeed, the 2009 Marmot review of health inequalities found a strong positive correlation between early childhood development and longer-term health outcomes. These benefits not only help the individual but are good for our nation as a whole. For instance, the New Economics Foundation produced a report in 2009 highlighting the economic and social benefits of early investment and found that for every £1 invested in a Sure Start children’s centre, £4.60 of social value is generated.
To conclude, investing early matters. An old adage cautions that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I extend that to say that if we as a country fail to invest in the early years education of our children, we will have only ourselves to blame if they continue to face low levels of social mobility and find that doors are shut in their faces. We must not and cannot allow that to happen.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for obtaining this debate and in doing so salute her for the consistency and determination with which on the Floor of this House she pursues issues affecting children. I would like to focus on one issue which the noble Baroness identified, and that is school readiness because it is no good talking about education unless you are certain that the child is ready for that education. As chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, I want to focus on the necessary communication skills which, if absent, will prevent children learning.
It is interesting to note how the impact of the electronic age on our children has crept up on us during the latter part of the 20th century and the 21st century. Too many of them are just parked in front of a television set or handed a computer game. They simply end up being unable to communicate, either with each other or anyone else. This was put to me very well last week during a dinner that I was helping to host for Durham cathedral when my neighbour told me of the frustrated anger of her two year-old niece who, like many of her contemporaries, had been issued with an iPad of some kind. She issued frustrated cries of rage when she wiped her hand across a television set and it did not respond.
Members of the all-party group have conducted research into what is happening now and what can be done about it. We were very struck by a graph produced for us which showed that a child with a high IQ coming from an unsupportive or socially disadvantaged background was overtaken at the age of five and a half by a child with a low IQ coming from a supportive background. That to my mind is an indictment of the system. We must do something about it. On discussing this with experts, I was interested to learn that the age of five and a half is very important as it marks the end of a critical window where interventions can be made effectively and identified gaps can be closed. Therefore, it seems hugely important that we should focus on the years up to the age of five and a half to make certain that that crossover never happens.
We are very glad that the Government have done a number of things recently, including bringing in the integrated review incorporating health visitor checks at the age of two and the pre-school progress checks in the reformed early years foundation stage. I welcome the duty that is being put on local health and well-being boards. However, I am very concerned that by putting the duty on local health and well-being boards the Government are introducing the possibility of postcode lotteries, and they worry me. I welcome the early support programmes and the early years foundation stage profiles as a factor but I wonder about the use that is made of them. I also welcome the involvement of speech and language therapies at various stages of education.
However, I am concerned that I have already mentioned the involvement not just of local government but of the Department of Health, the Department for Education and another department. They all need pulling together because individual organisations are doing their own thing. It is very important to recognise that the good they are doing will not be aggregated unless their efforts are pulled together. As I have said many times, the thing that worries me most about prisons is that nobody of a particular type is in charge of who is responsible or accountable for making things happen. Until you have somebody who is responsible and accountable nothing will happen. We cannot afford to let this situation go on. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: who will be in charge of all the development I have outlined?
During research for a report which my group will publish—we hope before the children and families Bill is published—on the connection between social advantage and speech, language and communication needs, we discovered that the Department of Health and the Department for Education together have published four potential pathways consisting of guidance for workers. One is guidance for health visitors and midwives on pregnancy and the early weeks. Another is guidance for health visitors and school nurses on supporting children from the age of two, and their families, until settled into school. The third is guidance for school nurses on supporting children with complex and/or additional health needs; that continues until age 25, linked with provision for people with special educational needs. The final guidance is for school nurses and youth justice workers on supporting children at risk of entering the criminal justice system. I welcome those publications because they provide a framework within which everything I have been talking about can be brought together. However, I must emphasise that this requires management, not just allowing the pathways to be published and the individual organisations to get on. We must make certain that everyone is required to conform to their pathway; otherwise we will not achieve the results.
Of course, a lot of training needs to go with this. I have been fascinated while we have been undertaking the inquiry, because we have learnt of wonderful examples of work where, for example, Stoke-on-Trent has been training everyone down to the dinner ladies and the lollipop men to identify people who might have the sort of problem that could be helped. There are masses of good examples that need to be pulled together. Under all this, I come down to the fact that until and unless children can engage with a teacher and therefore engage with education, they are never going to make progress. The lesson we have learnt is that until and unless you enable people to do that communication—after all, education boils down to contact between a teacher and a pupil—they will not be ready for the school and the education that is the subject of this debate.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for bringing this vital subject back to the House. It provides us with an opportunity to consider some of the telling reports that have come out over the past year or so. As we have heard, early years care and education is an area that attracts strong views and debate.
We can all agree with Dame Clare Tickell when she observes in her report on the early years foundation stage that there are few things more important than making sure that all children are given the very best start in life. Indeed, the aim of doing so through improved childcare, early education, health and family support lay at the heart of the previous Government’s creation of Sure Start in 1998. These children’s centres are an excellent example of partnership between the maintained, private and voluntary sectors. Today, they offer the earliest help to more than 2.5 million children and families.
The Government have themselves said that the series of reviews over the past year have served to strengthen the arguments for investment and reform in the foundation years. I should like to focus my remarks on one report—on an aspect of the debate that I have raised before, but to which I make no apology for returning: the need for a properly qualified, well motivated workforce in the foundation years.
In her review of early education and childcare qualifications, Foundations for Quality, Professor Cathy Nutbrown says:
“The biggest influence on the quality of early education and care is its workforce. Those who engage with children, supporting their learning and interaction with their environment through play, can affect their wellbeing, development and achievements”.
I know that to be true. I should declare an interest here in that my sister is an early years professional, operating two nurseries in Nottingham and previously several in London. I take my cue from her when she says that it is crucial that staff working in the early years are highly trained, well managed and led; that continuing professional development is vital; and that early years practitioners should be appropriately qualified and rewarded. Needless to say, this is not the current state of affairs. However, I am encouraged by Professor Nutbrown’s review, whose final report came out in June this year. She recognises that progress has been made in skills, and notes examples of excellent practice across the sector, but makes detailed and specific recommendations for improvement. I look forward to the Government’s response, which I understand is imminent.
Dame Clare Tickell’s earlier review of the early years foundation stage recommended that the Government keep a focus on upskilling the workforce and,
“maintain the ambitions for a graduate-led sector”.
Professor Nutbrown picks up on many of Clare Tickell’s points. She recommends that level 3 qualifications become the minimum standard for the workforce, changing current requirements so that all staff, including childminders who work with the early years foundation stage framework, should be qualified at a minimum “full and relevant” level 3 by September 2022. She also wants to strengthen level 3 qualifications to focus on the birth-to-seven age range and to include more on child development and play, more on special educational needs and disability and more on inclusivity and diversity. More controversially among the early years community, she has called for the introduction of a new early years teaching qualification to replace the early years professional status, citing research which shows the huge positive impact of graduate leadership on areas such as early literacy and social development.
I wonder about this proposal. The previous Government invested huge sums, through the transformation and graduate leaders funds, to transform the early years profession by the introduction of the early years professional status for existing graduates, based on the pedagogical model so admired in the Scandinavian childcare system, and also by encouraging others to undertake graduate study through the early years foundation and early education degrees. The profession tells us that this has already had a huge positive impact on practice, particularly in the areas highlighted by Professor Nutbrown. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s response to this?
In their response to other reports, Supporting Families in the Foundation Years, the Government announced that they would set up a national network of early years teaching centres to raise standards and improve children’s outcomes. The idea is that nursery schools and children’s centres demonstrating outstanding practice will share their expertise and support with other early years settings in their region. Will the Minister indicate how the Government plan to share lessons learnt from this model and say whether there may be opportunities for expansion?
The Government’s response also pointed to the new workforce agency. The Teaching Agency, operational from April this year, is to take responsibility for early years workers, including supporting the drive for a more highly qualified workforce and an increase in graduate leadership. Can the Minister give us any insights into progress made by the Teaching Agency in these areas?
When we consider the quality of staff needed to give our children the best possible start in life, we need to consider their qualifications. The evidence suggests that those with a higher level of qualification, degree-level specialism in early childhood, have the greatest impact. Research has shown the benefits that graduate leaders, and particularly qualified teachers, bring to early years settings. They have positive impacts, both in terms of curriculum and pedagogical leadership and in terms of measurable improvement in children’s outcomes in early literacy, social development, mathematics and science.
However much we talk about improving qualifications, we must also talk about cost. Someone has to pay for this and in that context, will the Minister say whether the Government will monitor the impact of the loss of the early intervention grant so as not to jeopardise other early years programmes, as the LGA fears? At the moment the major providers of childcare and education, the private and voluntary sectors, are almost totally dependent on the fees paid by parents and carers who need assistance. The early years education grant, paid by local authorities directly to providers for the support of two, three and four year-olds, is a reliable model, but the rate needs to be increased to enable providers to continue to offer it. The tax credit system accessed directly by parents is complicated, confused and easily open to fraudulent or mistaken claims. Will the Government bite the bullet and finally look at a system by which early years childcare and education becomes jointly funded by parents and the state, with all payments being made directly to providers who are highly regulated, constantly inspected and more easily accountable?
We have been told that high quality early education is one of the most important determinants of every child’s life chances. It is clear that we need to raise our expectations of what it means to work with young children and attract the best people into the workforce. We must not lose sight of the fact that investing in early years is investing in all our futures.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lady Walmsley for initiating this debate and for rightly drawing our attention to the crucial importance of early years learning.
Those charged with the responsibility for making decisions on how to invest public money most effectively in education, whether politicians or practitioners, rarely have all the money they would like. Prioritisation is therefore a key part of their role and that prioritisation needs, inevitably, a clear evidence base.
There are fundamental questions that must be taken into account. When is public investment in education at its most effective? How can we get the most impact on child development? How can we reduce the impact of child poverty on aspiration and learning by investing in the right way at the right time for the right child?
We continue to be informed by research studies. One that was drawn to my attention very recently was research carried out at the centre for neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. This 20-year longitudinal research project involving 64 children has shown that the most important factor in cortex development of teenagers is stimulation at the age of four, and that an early childhood with easy access to books and educational toys will have a positive effect on the brain for at least 20 years. That is because the more the brain is stimulated at the age of four, the more developed are the parts of the brain linked to language and cognition in later life.
Researchers in Pennsylvania visited the homes of the 64 children at the age of four and made records to measure cognitive stimulation, including data such as the number of children's books, whether the toys taught them about colour, numbers or letters and whether they played musical instruments either real or toy. They also took account of the nurturing that the children got from their parents. The survey was repeated at the age of eight and then, around 10 years later, between the ages of 17 and 19, the development of each child's cortex was assessed. The results concluded that the development of the cortex was related to the child's cognitive stimulation at the age of four and that other factors, including parental nurturing, were actually secondary.
The sort of intellectual stimulus indicated in this research is clearly more likely to be provided in middle and higher-income families where, even without knowledge of the physiological and developmental consequences of providing a stimulating environment for children, it is a normal part of childrearing to provide books, stimulating toys, visits to farms, museums and so on and to talk to children and encourage questioning.
Other research has shown some very clear differences in the capacity of children on entering formal school aged four and in their attainment at seven, and that it varies according to family background. It is therefore right that specific resources should be directed at economically disadvantaged children from an early age.
This means continuing to provide adequate funding for Sure Start, on the grounds that it funds the early years education of both parents and children and will help to close the gap in attainment between children from poor and wealthier backgrounds in the pre-school period. It means providing money, as this Government have done, for free nursery places for two year-olds from low-income families, and it means continuing to provide funding based on free school meals numbers to ensure that money can be targeted in Sure Start centres, in nurseries and in early years in schools.
However, it is not just a question of the amount of funding. It is also about quality provision and about how the funding is used. I have been struck by the conclusions of two reports published recently that are relevant to this. Both were referred to a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. The first is a report on the Early Years Foundation Stage by Dame Clare Tickell, published in March 2011, and the second is a report by Cathy Nutbrown, The Independent Review of Early Education and Childcare Qualifications. Both draw similar conclusions about the importance of the training and qualifications of those working in early years education.
Dame Clare Tickell concluded that:
“The importance of a strong, well-qualified early years workforce was a consistent theme throughout my review”.
She further concluded that,
“there should continue to be a level 3 and a graduate ambition”,
and that,
“a new professional qualification is introduced that robustly combines practical experience with the development of expert knowledge”.
Professor Nutbrown's report, published in June this year, concluded that:
“Some current qualifications lack rigour and depth”,
and are not,
“systematically equipping practitioners with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to give babies and young children high quality experiences”.
She recommended that the content of level 3 qualifications be strengthened to include more on child development and play and, because level 2 qualifications were insufficient, that by 2015 70% of staff should have a level 3 qualification. As we have heard, these are important conclusions and I hope the Minister will be able to say something further on how the Government plan to raise the expertise of the early years workforce.
On the issue of clarity of funding, I understand that the early intervention grant, which does not relate only to early years, is being top-sliced by £150 million for two years to support central strategies. I am not quite clear what is proposed here although I am aware of the assurances of the Secretary of State at the end of October that there would be more money each year to 2015. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm, either today or later, exactly what is proposed for the early intervention grant and why, and whether it is to be a two-year financial change to the funding. It would be helpful to know exactly what the Government propose.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for initiating the debate today and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their passion and commitment on this issue. It is fair to say that the proposition unites all sides of the House. However, it is also true that we have differences on, for example, the means of delivery, the extent of the funding and the role that central government should play in driving this forward as a priority.
As we have heard today, the evidence demonstrating the crucial impact of a child’s experience between nought to five on their subsequent life chances continues to amass. I echo the comments of several noble Lords and pay particular credit to the work of Graham Allen MP, and others, who have provided a compelling analysis of the social problems which occur if children are not given the right kind of support in early years.
There was a stark illustration of this in the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago comparing the brain scans of two three year-old children, one of whom had been nurtured and stimulated and the other of whom had been neglected. The damage shown to the neglected child’s brain was at such a level that the child could never fully recover. The impact on the child’s cognitive and social development was permanent.
As we have heard, this has broader social policy implications. For example, a recent report by the Sutton Trust on social mobility showed that in vocabulary tests at the age of four and five children from poorer backgrounds in the UK are, on average, 19 months behind their peers. This gap widens as they progress through school. The report concluded that it was vital for young children regularly to engage with adults who are able to stimulate their vocabulary, social and cognitive skills.
The prize for getting this right is more than just narrowing the attainment gap, important though that is, it also begins to address the cyclical patterns of persistent unemployment, addiction and crime that can be traced back to neglect at a young age. This point was made eloquently by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.
There are economic as well as social benefits to be gained. Not only does a solid early education benefit the children themselves, in the form, for example, of increased lifetime earnings, but it also cuts the cost of later remedial education and welfare benefits which would otherwise fall upon the state.
I fully acknowledge the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Massey that the challenge with which we are confronted in the UK is of a different magnitude to the fundamental educational needs being faced in the developing world. I pay full regard to that.
As I said at the outset, there was a great deal of agreement across the Chamber on the principle of early intervention and early years education. However, it is the practical application of these policies within that where the divides begin to show. I shall give some examples where we have some cause for concern.
First, as noble Lords have acknowledged, the Sure Start programme was a keynote policy of the previous Government. It addressed the fundamental need for early intervention by helping whole families improve their parenting skills as well as providing stimulating learning environments for young children. Despite its short existence, it was beginning to deliver results and we were rightly proud of its achievements. That is why we continue to be dismayed that this Government have refused to ring-fence and guarantee funding for the centres, resulting in cuts and closures. The department’s own figures show a net reduction in the number of centres of 281, while a recent 4Children survey reports that 50% say their finances are less sustainable, 55% no longer provide on-site childcare and 20% have reduced the number of qualified teachers. This has gone from being a success story that could have transformed children’s lives to one of a struggle for survival—fighting over scarce resources and tearing up the original concept of a comprehensive one-stop shop for young vulnerable families. What assessment has been made of the impact of cutting the funding to councils on the future viability of the Sure Start network and at what point would the Government be prepared to intervene?
Secondly, we are proud of our record of extending nursery places to three and four year-olds and initially welcomed the Government’s intention to provide free nursery education for disadvantaged two year-olds. Unfortunately, despite the coalition’s continued assertion that this will be funded by new money, it is becoming clear that this is not the case. Even a leading Conservative councillor has described the announcement as “typical smoke and mirrors”. The facts appear to show, as confirmed in a Department for Communities and Local Government consultation, that the money for free education for disadvantaged two year-olds is being taken from existing early intervention budgets. What is more, the Government plan to merge this fund into the dedicated schools grant, which is itself being cut. This is at odds with the statement of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, in response to a question on this issue from my noble friend Lady Worthington in a debate on 11 October. Can the Minister explain which is telling the truth—the DoE or DCLG? Why is the early intervention grant being abolished just two years after being created? Which department will have responsibility for early intervention in the future now that DCLG is the funding department?
In addition, during Questions in the Commons on 29 October, Michael Gove stated that early intervention money will continue to go up over the lifetime of this Parliament. However, again this does not appear to be the case. This is similar to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The figures we have assembled, which have been shared with the Secretary of State, show that by next year early intervention funding will have fallen by over £1 billion, or 38%, and by the end of the Parliament it will have been cut by over 40%. Can the Minister clarify whether this is, indeed, the case and whether the Secretary of State intends to clarify his earlier statement? These may sound like dry statistics but they represent very real cuts in the early years services that we are debating today. That is why even the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, Merrick Cockell, has described the cuts as “counter-productive”.
Finally, I will pursue the issue of staff professionalism and qualifications, which was raised by several noble Lords. It is quite right that staff need to be trained to provide high-quality care and a stimulating learning environment. As noble Lords have acknowledged this afternoon, Professor Cathy Nutbrown has made a significant contribution to the thinking on this issue. I agree with her that there are far too many qualifications and that they do not necessarily equip students with the right skills. I also agree that we need to drive up minimum standards of qualification for anyone employed in early years provision, across the whole sector.
We have to be concerned about the recent proposals of Elizabeth Truss, now an education Minister, that far from driving up standards and professionalism in early years, the sector should be deregulated and replaced by a mums’ army of volunteers. She has also, as I understand it, proposed that childminders could increase the maximum number of children in their care, from three to five. This would certainly be one way of reducing costs, but it goes against all the knowledge we have acquired on the impact of high-quality, early years care on later development. Will the Minister reassure this House that the Government will not pursue deregulation of this sector and that Professor Nutbrown's recommendations are being actively embraced and pursued?
We have had a great deal of consensus today on the importance of early years education. Our dispute with the coalition is whether it has the political determination, the funding models and, frankly, the joined-up thinking to drive the necessary changes through. So far its record does not display much to cheer about, but I hope that today the Minister is able to give us some better news.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I will try to give noble Lords something to cheer about. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley said in her excellent opening speech, there is a lot which the coalition Government can be proud of and point to. I will try to make that argument as we go on. I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for the thoughtful way in which she framed the debate. She got us off to a great start. We expected her to show her knowledge of the subject, but also her commitment to the interest of children, for whom we all know she is such a champion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, there is compete agreement across the House about the core case that my noble friend made: that children’s physical, emotional, language and cognitive development to the age of five are the foundations for the rest of their lives.
While people’s destinies are not set in stone—and I believe that school has the ability to transform children’s lives—those early years clearly influence how children learn, their physical and mental health, their future friendships and relationships. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington set out, this is not least in connection with criminality. I agreed with her points about the economic benefits of effective early intervention—a point also made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh—and with the case made by my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield, about the obvious link to social mobility. We have heard a lot of evidence of the benefits of early years education. As my noble friend Lady Tyler explained, the effective provision of pre-school education study showed very clearly that the benefits persist through school to the end of key stage 2. It certainly found that high-quality early education has a strong impact on the development of disadvantaged children. The OECD found that almost all countries’ 15-year olds who had attended pre-school outperformed those who had not.
We also know that children growing up in workless households tend to do less well at school and are at much greater risk of not being in education, employment or training later on. That is why the Government are committed to doing more to make it worth while for parents to work. Therefore, good quality, affordable childcare also plays an important part in supporting parents to return to, or stay in, the workforce. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, about the broad consensus and I recognise the important steps that the last Government took on this. Significant change and progress have been made in this area, going back some 20 years. The quality of early education provision is improving. In 2010-11 the proportion of early-years-registered providers judged by Ofsted as good or outstanding, for example, increased to 74% from 68% the previous year.
The 2012 early years foundation stage profile results, a measure of children’s development at age five, show continued improvements, especially in early language development. A recent international study of early education systems by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the British system as the fourth strongest in the world and noted the progress made in creating universal access for all three and four year-olds. However, as all noble Lords have argued this afternoon, there is a lot more to do and the attainment gap between the lowest achieving 20% of children and their peers is still far too big.
That is why, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley, argued, the coalition Government have made such a priority of early years. We have taken several steps to increase both the availability of places and the quality offered. As we have already heard, the free entitlement for all three and four year-olds has been extended to 15 hours a week, and 96% of three and four year-olds are taking up a free place. From this September, parents have more flexibility over when they can take their entitlement. They might be able to take it earlier or later in the day or over shorter periods, to make it easier to balance their family and work commitments. We have discussed the new entitlement for two year-olds. We are working with local authorities to ensure that they provide clear and transparent information for parents and to encourage them to take up their child’s entitlement.
We have talked about the review carried out on the early years foundation stage by Dame Claire Tickell. As a result, we have published a simpler EYFS that came into force this September. That cuts bureaucracy, allows practitioners to spend more time with children and places a stronger emphasis on learning and development. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, reminded us, we have also introduced a new requirement for providers to review children’s progress at age two to help to identify areas where they might need additional support.
One area which we recognise as a crucial foundation for children’s future progress in reading and writing is early language development. The new Early Years Foundation Stage promotes communication and language as a prime area of learning for all children from birth and the new early learning goals in literacy specifically include expectations for children to be using their phonic knowledge to begin to read and write. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about co-ordination. It is up to the Department for Education and the Department of Health to work together. Ultimately, I guess that it is for Ministers to provide the leadership which he rightly says is needed to pull these things together and drive them forward.
On the quality of provision, which has been a recurring theme this afternoon, we are investing in and seeking to encourage the development of the early education and childcare workforce. We have supported graduate training at national level for the early years professional status and new leaders in early years programmes. We now have more than 10,500 EYPSs. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that anti-discriminatory practice is a key part of that EYPS training.
My noble friend Lord Shipley asked about the Government's commitment to the development of graduate-level practitioners; yes, we certainly have that commitment. I hope that we make that clear in our response to the Nutbrown review. We have increased the number of qualified children’s centre leaders through the national professional qualification in integrated centre leadership.
We aim to recruit an additional 4,200 health visitors by 2015. My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked how the Government are doing on that. We are on track to meet our commitment. In 2011-12, three times as many health visitors began training as in the previous year. This year, we will start to see real growth, as the cohort of newly qualified health visitors start to join the frontline.
As I said, we commissioned the Nutbrown review on the next steps, and I was asked specifically about that review by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. We intend to respond in full to its recommendations. My honourable friend the Minister for Education and Childcare will do so shortly and will set out how the Government plan to support the development of a better qualified and well led early years workforce. I will follow up the important points raised by my noble friend Lord True about Montessori education, but I can say that officials will be pleased to involve Montessori organisations in this and ensure that we have their input.
My honourable friends Liz Truss, in my department, and Steve Webb, at DWP, are leading the Childcare Commission, to which my noble friend Lady Walmsley referred. It was set up in June. It is considering the availability and costs of childcare.
I take the point made by my noble friend Lord True about over prescription. We want professionals to have the flexibility to exercise their skills and judgment. One of the issues that that commission is looking at is how to encourage new childminders to register. Increasing childminder numbers will give parents more choice between group-based and home-based care, with the additional flexibility that childminders offer. We are looking into what can be learnt from other countries. We have heard a lot of examples this afternoon about practice in other countries and the commission will be looking closely at the lessons we can learn from them. To refer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, we do want a system that is high quality as well as affordable.
We are in the process of contracting for the new Early Intervention Foundation, recommended by Mr Graham Allen, who has been mentioned frequently this afternoon. The contract will be for two years. It will operate independently of Government to advise commissioners on what works and to spread good practice. That relates to the point made by my noble friend Lord Shipley about the importance of evidence-based intervention.
Work is also under way with health and early years experts and practitioners to look at how we could introduce a fully integrated health and early years review at the age of two. We hope to do that from 2015. That also speaks to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about bringing health and education together into an integrated system.
As noble Lords know, we are also running a trial of parenting classes for parents whose children are nought to five years old. The trials are being carried out in Camden, Middlesbrough and High Peak. Information on take-up is being collected as part of the trials evaluation. A parental participation survey is being collected and an interim evaluation report will be published next spring.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised the important subject of parenting, as I would have expected him to do. He raised some interesting suggestions and if I may I will follow those up with him later.
A number of noble Lords mentioned funding and particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. Early intervention remains a key priority for the Government and I am glad to have the opportunity to reinforce and restate that commitment.
The changes that we are making to the way we fund local authorities for early intervention are designed to give them maximum flexibility in the way they use funding to provide local services. Local authorities have been asking for this.
We are also using the opportunity of these changes to move funding for the two year-old offer into the dedicated schools grant so that places for two, three and four year-olds are funded through the same grant. In a recent consultation, that was the preferred option.
The total amount that we plan to spend on early intervention over the next two years has not changed as a result of the above. We have not cut funding for early intervention to pay for the extension of the offer of free early education to the 40% most disadvantaged two year-olds. My department received additional funding for this from HM Treasury and this has been added to the existing funding.
The money currently in the early intervention grant will continue to go to local authorities for early intervention activity. In 2013-14, £530-odd million will be added to the dedicated schools grant to fund free early education and childcare for the most disadvantaged two year-olds; £1.7 billion will move to CLG and will be paid to local authorities through the business rates retention scheme; and £150 million, which my noble friend Lord Shipley referred to, will be set aside to support early intervention activities that evidence shows have most impact. If we put those together, it means that Government will be giving local authorities over £2.4 billion for early intervention in 2013-14, rising to over £2.5 billion in 2014-15.
On the points raised by noble Lords about children’s centres, I agree with my noble friend Lady Walmsley and a number of noble Lords on the Benches opposite who spoke about the importance of children’s centres. The Government want to see the retention of a national network of Sure Start children’s centres. They act as a valuable hub for families to access these important services, and I know that they are greatly valued by local communities. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley acknowledged, there has been a small net reduction in children’s centre numbers. The latest figures I have seen, which were provided by local authorities, suggest that there have been 25 outright closures to date, which is less than 1% of all centres. The rest of the reduction is accounted for by local authorities reorganising and merging some of their children’s centres to make efficiency savings, as noble Lords have said. Local authorities have the funding to ensure they can meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient children’s centres to meet local need. They must consult before making significant changes, but fundamentally, the Government’s view is that local authorities should have that funding and the flexibility to decide how to allocate it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, brought a new perspective to the debate by broadening it out and reminding us that whatever problems we have in our country, there are other countries where the problems are even more significant. DfID is engaged in a range of research related to early childhood development. I have been told that DfID programmes are currently supporting 4.5 million girls at primary level and at least 700,000 girls at secondary level, or will be by 2016, so there is work in hand. I was grateful to the noble Baroness for reminding us of a different group of children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, asked about early years teaching centres and whether we would share learning from that model. Our view is that they are doing good work. Her suggestion is a good one, and we will actively look to ensure that that learning is shared.
My noble friend Lady Benjamin raised the important matter of toilets for young children at school and in early years. The EYFS requires that all early years providers have to ensure that there are an adequate number of toilets and separate toilets for adults. It also requires that fresh drinking water is available at all times. So far as school level is concerned, new regulations are coming, as the noble Baroness knows very well as she and I have had the chance to discuss them. They set out that washing facilities have to be suitable for pupils. There are also regulations covering the general health, safety and welfare of pupils and a requirement that there should be separate toilets for boys and girls aged eight or over.
My noble friend Lord True asked about the staff/child ratios for independent and state providers. The staff/child ratios in the EYFS apply to all providers, and they vary to take account of the age of the children and the qualifications of staff. He will know better than me that there is a technical difference between independent schools and maintained schools in reception year. I believe that the ratios are broadly the same, but the different wording reflects the different legislation that applies to maintained schools and to independent schools.
I hope I have picked up on the main themes that have been raised. I shall go through, and if there are any specific points, I will follow them up with noble Lords.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I asked a specific question about funding. I am sorry to go on about it, but it is important. I asked about the statement made by Michael Gove in the Commons in October that the early invention grant throughout the life of this Parliament is going to increase. The Minister quoted some figures, but he did not say whether the total is going up or down. I do not know whether he can answer that this afternoon, or whether he could write to me.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope I said that the total funding going into early intervention is going up because of the new money that is coming in to pay for the two-year offer. The combination of the two means that it is going up. In this good and simulating debate there has certainly been widespread acceptance about the importance of the early years. I hope that I have managed to show the priority that the coalition Government collectively attach to it and some of the practical steps that we have taken. Although we have made some good progress at what we know is a difficult time financially, there is clearly much more work to do. We will be setting out further areas for action, both in terms of the early years workforce and how to improve the quality of childcare before the end of the year in our response to Nutbrown and also in setting out the findings of our childcare commission. I look forward to discussing those next steps with noble Lords then.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very full reply and all noble Lords who have taken part in this very wide-ranging debate. We have had everything from brain development, early intervention, the international perspective, parenting and preparation for parenting, to funding issues, the connection with social mobility and well-being, communication skills and the all-important qualifications issue.
If you are given the last word, you are crazy if you do not use it. Here is my last word. I would counsel caution about this concept of school-readiness. Schools must be ready for children and they will only be ready for children when the classrooms are filled with highly qualified early years experts with the freedom to use their professional judgement. That brings me to the issue of assessment and tests. There is no place for summative assessment in the early years. Formative assessment, yes—as long as it is done sensitively and the purpose is to inform the practice of the professionals who work in the early years. But please let us not go back to curricular straitjackets—and certainly not league tables.