Stamp of approval for early excellence

Three-quarters of the 107 Early Excellence Centres in England are well-managed, provide a useful model for integrating services, and are helping to combat the effects of child poverty and improve the life chances of young children, a report by Ofsted has found. However, Ofsted said that while the quality of care and learning was good, a third of the 23 centres inspected 'do too little to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning in the Foundation Stage' because of inadequate staff management skills and insufficient support from local education authorities.