Since the announcement of plans to extend the early entitlement offers earlier this year, we’ve seen journalists, thinktanks, politicians and a whole host of other previously-uninterested parties suddenly become deeply invested in the future of early years policy. And yet, for all the newly-intense focus on the early years, there is one vital piece of the puzzle that all too often is missing from discussions: the child.
Once again, we have found ourselves embroiled in debates about the sector that view the early years solely as ‘childcare’ – but where is the child in all this? Because when we look at the early years solely through the lens of ‘childcare’, we are by definition mentally positioning children as obstacles, as barriers to their parents returning to work, an inconvenient problem to be solved – and we lose focus on their rights as young citizens: the right to quality early years care and education and to happy, healthy childhoods.
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