Innovation charity Nesta tracked the attendance of 800 two-year-olds eligible for the 15 hours of free childcare entitlement and found that attendance was at 79 per cent, compared with 85 per cent among their peers.
When combined with the hours missed by eligible children whose families fail to take up the two-year-old-offer, researchers estimate that disadvantaged children could be missing out on as many as ‘45 million hours of lost learning’ per year.
The study, which took place over a seven week period last summer, involved staff in each setting tracking the planned hours that families had signed up for against the number of hours children attended.
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