Think tank calls for fresh impetus in improving the quality of early years teaching

A new report by the think tank shows that over three-quarters of nurseries and childminders were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted last year compared to only 64 per cent of settings in the most deprived areas of the country, and calls for the government to put fresh impetus in to improving the quality of early years teaching.

Among its proposals, it recommends extending the Teach First scheme, currently only open to primary and secondary schools, to the early years as a way of attracting bright graduates to the sector.

The think tank says that by extending the scheme it would build on proposals in the Nutbown Review, which suggested developing a new training route for teachers in the early years. It would also enable a focus to be placed on the most disadvantaged areas.

The Teach First scheme, run by independent charity Teach First, trains the best graduates to gain QTS, while teaching in challenging schools.

To be eligible for the Teach First scheme, schools must have at least 50 per cent of pupils from the lowest 30 per cent of the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI). The IDACI measures in a local area the proportion of children under the age of 16 that live in low-income households.

Another recommendation from Policy Exchange, outlined in its report entitled ‘Quality Childcare: Improving early years childcare’, is to make all local authority evaluations of early years provision public by publishing them on the Ofsted website.

The think tank argues that parents have limited information about the quality of care on offer, which it says can distort the market as parents make choices based on out of date information, word of mouth or cost and convenience.

However, the authors of the report warn that while publishing reports would help with local authority (LA) accountability, they could also severely damage the reputation of a provider if they identified a serious drop in quality. In order to limit this, the think tank suggests a grace period after a LA inspection where Ofsted can be called in to re-inspect those providers who have been deemed inadequate.

• Prioritising applications made by free schools to set up in deprived areas and offer nursery provision in light of concerns that there isn’t enough capacity to meet the extension of the free entitlement to two-year-olds.
• Introducing a single online account system which combines the childcare element of working tax credit, universal credit and childcare vouchers, and can only be used for childcare.
• Increasing the child care element of working tax credits, using savings made from introducing an online childcare account system for all working parents (see above). According to Policy Exchange, errors in the current system account for £260 million every year
•  Making childcare settings which do not improve on satisfactory Ofsted ratings join a Quality Assurance scheme run by an external provider.

Harriet Waldegrave, author of the report, said, ‘Many women, especially those in lower income households, want or need to work after the birth of children but the lack of high quality affordable childcare is preventing them from doing so.

‘Early years education will only have a positive impact on a child’s development if it is of a high quality. While provision is improving, it’s not doing so fast enough. Most worryingly of all, lower quality provision in disadvantaged areas means positive effects of early years education are less likely to be seen for the children who need it most.’