Education: Early Years

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.