Early Years Development and School-Readiness

Chloe Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I wanted to take part in this debate because I strongly endorse the four points with which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) began: the workforce, speech and language therapy, special educational needs and disability—SEND—and what the most disadvantaged need most. He was absolutely right about that last point and, with regard to my own constituency, I am sad to report that Norwich recently turned out to be a cold spot of social mobility according to the social mobility index—the Minister is familiar with that. I am leading local work to investigate the finding, which returns us directly to the fact that we need to focus on the point in the early years when intervention can make the most difference for later years. Evidence on life chances shows a very clear progression when intervention starts as early as possible.

On getting the help to those who need it most, I would like to present a local example of impressive joint working in Norwich between a children’s centre, health visitors and a school. It is a tight-knit geographical cluster, but they are taking on the challenge of reaching out to those who most need the help—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton pointed out that there is a risk that those who need the provision less are the ones who use it. It is no secret to anyone that children’s centres need to be able to use their resources in the most effective way, and I thoroughly support that team in Norwich in their efforts to reach out to those parents and families who need the support most.

There is also a clear piece of work that children’s centres and infant schools in particular can do together—approaching school-readiness—which takes me on to another theme that has been well-argued already this morning. I concur that school-readiness is crucial. Will the Minister take the opportunities presented by the expansion of the 15 hours’ childcare offer to 30 hours and the associated funding formula changes to review what he expects of school-readiness? I note that in the 2014 “Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage”, school-readiness is rightly laid out but, currently, settings report to local authorities on request. The Minister might like to look at that. He has a puzzled look on his face—it is on page 15 of the statutory early years framework document. I urge him to see what can be done to help childcare and early years settings work with schools, as in the local example I presented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

Nursery schools do a fantastic job. We will publish a reform of early years funding to go with the 30 hours’ free childcare. I have had meetings with those people and understand their concerns. I can give an assurance that we recognise the important work that they do, particularly in disadvantaged areas, and I certainly want it to continue and will do what I can to ensure that it does.

[Chloe Smith]

An extremely brief factual question: will the Minister give us the results of his consultation and the funding formula he referred to before the summer recess, or should we await that a little later on?

[Mr Gyimah]

All I can say is that we want to provide that as soon as possible, because we understand the need for providers to prepare so that they can deliver the full 30 hours in 2017—it is in the “urgent” in-tray at the moment.

I will develop my points further and answer some of the questions that have been asked. On take-up, we will publish a workforce strategy shortly. Speech and language is absolutely important. If a child arrives at school and cannot communicate or recognise that those squiggly things on a page are words, and that words are used to form sentences, they have got a problem. One of the things the early years pupil premium is there for is for those disadvantaged kids to get extra funding—about £300 a head—and the nurseries can make a discretionary decision on how to spend that to ensure that those kids do not arrive at school already behind.