Early Years Education

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Andrews for bringing this crucial topic to the House. It is vital that this Government think seriously about early education and implement strategies to mitigate the awful reductions in education attainment across the whole spectrum of school age groups, made significantly worse since the Covid-19 pandemic.

We all know that a child, even before it is born, can feel a whole lot of aspects that are going on through its mother’s womb, including violence and calmness. So when the child is born, it is absolutely vital that it starts to have early education, including in the home. That is why Sure Start projects should be reinstated, so that mothers, fathers or carers can take children to groups to start them being social at a very early age and so that they learn to share, talk and behave and learn all the aspects that my noble friend spoke about earlier through apps and so on. I am very pleased about her lecture; I will send it on to others, as many parents and care workers need to know about that. I thank her so much.

Why are early years important? When discussing childhood education, preschool often gets relegated to the sidelines, as if it were somehow of secondary importance compared with primary and secondary schooling. Pre-education gives the ground rules and start to every child. We like to say that every child is born equal, but if they are not having preschool and that sort of help in the home and outside, they will be losing already. If we look at how children develop—and, importantly, when they develop—we may become inclined to pay a little more attention to this overlooked phase of our children’s development journey.

The simple fact is that early years education tremendously impacts on lifelong achievements. The majority of all development occurs during the very first years in this world, and 85% of our language is cemented before the age of five. I can tell that with young children around me. That is even more so these days, when it is even quicker; for some reason, they grasp things much faster. Between the ages of 18 months and five years, a child goes from knowing approximately 50 words to using around 2,000 and understanding some 5,000 more. This kind of rapid development happens at no other time during our lives, and the same pattern of booming cognitive ability happens in other areas, too, including physical, psycho-emotional and cognitive ability. All these skills are the foundations that later learning and development are built on. That is why we have to invest more. If a child has encountered disadvantages during this time, this has already had an effect.

According to the Times Education Commission,

“40 per cent of the attainment gap that can be seen at the age of 16 is already in place before those children even start school”.

So a bad start at an early age can never be made up; we know that education cannot be made up for those children who start school as late as five. The commission states:

“A child’s development score as young at 22 months is”


the

“predictor of where they will be educationally at the age of 26”.

That is very frightening, but we know that it is the truth.

Often, the entire process has occurred before a child has encountered a teacher. The importance of properly funded, well-trained and well-staffed preschool education has gone entirely amiss under this Government. The decision to increase staff-to-child ratios in early years settings sends a clear signal, because children need people to look after them. You cannot increase how many children the teacher or carer will look after; we should decrease the number of children they have to look after, so that the children can get much more attention. This is sending a clear signal that, instead of giving the sector the much-needed investment it needs, they would rather lower the standards of care available—at the moment of a child’s life that is arguably the most important.

Another important issue with going to childcare or nursery schools is food. We know that a child and its brain cannot function without food—we have to understand this. It is vital that we provide more breakfast clubs, so that children get food when they go to nursery. Those who cannot afford that should be given free food. Also, we should have free school meals, including during the holidays, which is a very difficult time. This will affect the generations to come and we will not be a country that is fast flowing if we do not invest in our young people from the very beginning.

These decisions on the quality of preschool education affect not only the child’s attainment but the economy and our society at large. The Times estimated that, for every £1 spent on early education, £13 would be saved later. That is not a lot of money when added up over a long time. The money will be saved later in a child’s life in education, catch-up interventions and, more importantly, mental health and health. Research from the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education project showed that children who attend preschool have better education and social outcomes at the end of primary and secondary education, and have higher GCSE scores and the potential for higher earnings.

I come to Covid and post-pandemic changes to early years education. For children, we can even say that the pandemic is not fully over. They continue to be impacted by the effects of lockdown measures, and it is still difficult to ascertain just how harmful the pandemic period has been on their development. That applies in particular to those who were locked in high-rise flats with nowhere to turn, who had balconies but could not go out on them because it was unsafe and who received no education, with no way of ascertaining anything with regard to preschool.

During the first national lockdown, early years settings experienced partial closures, permitting only children of key workers and those considered vulnerable. Who decides whether a child is vulnerable? A child can be vulnerable in a rich family or a poor family—all sorts of factors determine that decision. Despite subsequent lockdowns allowing preschools to remain open in many circumstances, statistics released by the Department for Education in December 2021 highlighted that attendance levels had not reverted to their pre-pandemic status. We see that today with children who are not attending school, and the numbers of those who are not attending preschool are even worse. Parents are keeping children at home because of costs, but that is damaging that child beyond damage. Consequent numbers of children have missed out on valuable guidance from early years practitioners.

Families continue to grapple with the challenge of balancing childcare alongside remote work, health concerns and the cost of living crisis, which has meant that many cannot afford full-time preschool. That is why we have to have nursery schools attached to schools; regardless of the cost, this is vital to the country. Additionally, a report from the Children’s Commissioner has revealed that a substantial number of children endured adverse circumstances during lockdown, including experiences of poverty, exposure to domestic violence, parental mental health challenges, instances of parental abuse and even more violence.

Early years education needs to be taken as seriously and given as much time and attention as primary and secondary education. The early years education system needs reform, and quickly, if barriers to entry are going to be broken, especially if they exist alongside the wealth divide. We must place more nurseries in primary schools and integrate early years into the more formal education sector. This would not only help bring down costs for parents of young children and babies but would also help to standardise and improve the levels of care and education delivered at a young age.

Early years educators should be on the same pay scale as primary educators, and more teaching graduates need to be brought into the profession and encouraged. Our early years facilities are closing down at alarming rates, and educators are leaving the field en masse. Much of this issue stems from early years underfunding and undercaring, and the idea that this area does not matter, and children can go to school at five but not before—that is it. The Government, and any Government after them, must put investment in the early years education sector central to any long-term strategy for education.

I will say a word about families and children of refugees in this country. Many families have come to this country not as refugees but sometimes because they have been displaced by war or climate change. Those children should be in school and should have the advantage of preschool as well; over the years they have and they have not. These are the future generations and it is about our soft power; they may decide to stay here or to go elsewhere, but we need to take care of those families properly because they will be our partners as the world goes further.

I come back to say that, when you are thinking about moving refugee families, think about the children’s education, including their preschool education, and their health. That is vital; otherwise, it will cost those families, the country and the world much more. We should take that more into consideration when we are moving children of refugees abruptly.