Ten out of ten?

Nationally, it has been a groundbreaking time for the early years. Young children have stopped being 'pre' everything, and now enjoy the right to have their own particular needs and interests recognised and met, first in the Foundation Stage, then in Birth To Three Matters and finally in the EYFS.

There was finally a recognition - backed by research - that what happened to children in their earliest years made a real difference to their academic outcomes, social and emotional well-being and dispositions to learn. But I'm sad that despite that recognition, there is still a reluctance to invest in the early years workforce.

I'd like the next decade to focus on putting the EYFS principles into practice, but we'll continue to have practitioners who are unable to do that without investment in training.

Lesley Staggs, early years consultant and first-ever Foundation Stage director I would like to be able to flag up the last decade as bringing public attention to the fact that 'Every Child Matters'. Early Excellence Centres, Birth to Three Matters, the EPPE research, the Common Assessment Framework ensuring families are targeted by agencies working in a joined-up way...

all positive and commendable so far. But, as always, golden opportunities were lost through ill-thought-out initiatives and ridiculous targets that prove little.

Sure Start is a case in point. The trailblazers weren't even given money for nursery provision and now the children's centre funding is non-sustainable and insufficient.

In the decades to follow, we will still have reason to be grateful. We still have the Foundation Stage, promoting outdoor play and allowing reception children (and their teachers) to learn to play all over again. We have foundation degrees, the NPQICL for integrated centre leaders, and the extended schools agenda that opened up expensive buildings all year round and ensured full community use. There will be no turning the clock back on this one. Some brickbats, but lots of golden nuggets.

Pat Wills, headteacher of Claremont Community Primary School and Centre of Excellence, Blackpool In 1997, Britain was a pretty backward country for anyone who had a young child. Since then, many good things have happened - huge investment, the development of family services. Yet I can't help but feel a certain disappointment.

I think that the Early Excellence Programme came to epitomise something that's a problem in education - the increasing tendency for one establishment to get all the money and status, while just up the road there's someone else trying to do the same things with half the money, or less. Overall, the sector now seems terribly uneven. The best places provide really well for children; the worst fall short of what I'd want.

Julian Grenier, head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre, London We'd particularly like to see more emphasis on supporting parents of disabled children. Childcare costs for a disabled child are much higher, but this isn't recognised in the childcare element of Working Tax Credits.

Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families I believe it has been a decade of real progress and it's easy to forget just what progress has been made.

Although, in my view, the national minimum standards should be stronger, the debate around 'smacking and smoking' in home-based childcare settings, which provoked so much emotion and debate throughout the sector - and so many arguments with ministers - has not only been won, it feels as if it came from the beginning of the last century rather than the end of it!

For childminding, it was a watershed. The development of new childminding qualifications, Children Come First networks and the Quality First QA scheme gave childminders the opportunity to show their professionalism.

They also grasped the opportunities offered by EYDCPs to show local authorities what a broad and inclusive range of services they could offer children and families.

Gill Haynes, OBE, consultant and vice-chair of CWDC, former chief executive of the National Childminding Association Over half the under-fives in Newham now use one of the nought-to-fives programmes in the borough, and initial figures show that this has fed through into better outcomes for children. But in future, we would like to see more security and continuity of funding to tackle the difficult issues of child poverty, underachievement and generations of worklessness - not just a series of changing initiatives.

Cllr Quintin Peppiatt, chair Newham EYDCP, Newham cabinet member for Children and Young People The plethora of initiatives has overwhelmed the sector and in some cases been counterproductive. The obvious example is Neighbourhood Nurseries, which have now floundered in the wake of children's centres.

The missed opportunity that stands out for me is the failure to bring together the funding streams. As long as we fund separately early years education and childcare, we will never have a truly integrated service. The enthusiasm, energy and money should have given the early years a good start, but I am not sure we have laid the best foundations.

Rosemary Murphy OBE FRSA, former chief executive of the NDNA In 1997 we had high hopes that the Government would build on the enlightened provision developed in visionary local authorities, inspired by the pioneers from a century ago.

Sadly, quality has not kept pace with expansion. Despite EPPE findings that the best practice is led by early years teachers, and Ofsted judgements that maintained nursery schools offer the highest standards of 'educare', nursery school numbers have fallen steadily, with more at risk.

The loss of these internationally recognised examples of excellence, which inspire and empower others to raise their quality of practice, is serious.

This disastrous levelling down in understanding of and commitment to quality is undermining the welcome increase in provision.

Wendy Scott, president of TACTYC (Training, Advancement and Co-operation in Teaching Young Children) Early findings from the national evaluation of Sure Start indicated that Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) were not having the impact hoped for, while the EPPE project indicated that integrated children's centres were particularly beneficial to children's development. Children's minister Margaret Hodge decided that this evidence justified changing SSLPs into children's centres.

As part of the change, the centres passed, by statute, from central Government to local authority control, so embedding them within the welfare state and making it hard for any future Government to eradicate them.

Health agencies also became legally obliged to co-operate in providing services within the centres.

The spend on children's centres and associated programmes for 2007-08 is Pounds 1.8bn, almost four times the amount spent on equivalent services in 2001-02. Sure Start has thus become a significant part of the welfare state.

Professor Edward Melhuish, executive director, National Evaluation of Sure Start, Birkbeck, University of London The development of the FS and EYFS as a distinct area for education in the early years is a radical, national reform, which we all now take for granted. However, the commitment to early years as 'childcare' rather than 'early childhood education' contradicts the commitment to improving outcomes and well-being.

Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Institute of Education, University of London The last ten years have seen great improvements in childcare, but we've still got a long way to go in achieving our goal of universal access to high-quality, affordable childcare. Just how far was highlighted by the recent figures on child poverty, up by 200,000 on last year. One in three children in the UK still have their lives blighted by poverty, and providing their families with high-quality childcare is key to putting this right.

Alison Garnham, joint chief executive of the Daycare Trust Demand-side funding is based on a cumbersome and flawed tax credit system and an unwieldy approach to the 'free entitlement' that take little account of providers' sustainability.

Nathan Archer, the Children's House Consultancy The economic perspective on childcare, and extended school care, has made it unacceptable in some quarters to question whether the experience is unwelcome for some children.

Jennie Lindon, child psychologist and early years consultant The most disturbing thing about initiatives such as the Foundation Stage, Birth to Three Matters and the literacy hour has been the prescriptive way in which they have been interpreted and implemented. As long as training is patchy, staff turnover high and pay poor, we will never have the workforce needed to implement such initiatives. The desire for quality is there. We must make it happen.

Jeanne Barczewska, early years lecturer and consultant In 1997, many of us hoped for a universally accessible, publicly-funded, equitable early education and care system that contributed to poverty reduction and social cohesion. It is not so hard to achieve - many European countries have such a system. Instead, the Government has reinforced the old boundaries between childcare for working parents, nursery education, and targeted welfare programmes for the poor.

It has spent relatively little money compared with what was needed to provide an equitable system, and the private sector has swelled sevenfold to fill the gap. Overall, life is not much better for parents with young children than it was ten years ago.

Professor Helen Penn, School of Education, University of East London It has to be 'right' to ensure that children have equal access to education and care, but do we really need such detailed developmental grids, as contained in the EYFS guidance, to alert us to the fact, for example, that an 11-month-old should get excited about food or respond by gurgling and babbling? The grids, to me, are one of the most worrying elements to come out of the whole package of measures set in place over the last ten years - they can only put children and practitioners under great stress.

Janet Moyles, Professor Emeritus

Extended comments are available on our website at www.nurseryworld.co.uk