Education: Early Years

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.