Well-educated early years workforce vital to closing gaps in 'school readiness'

The educational charity the Sutton Trust says that a well-trained early years workforce is vital to close the gap between children from poorer homes and their peers.

Its recommendations draw on the conclusions of the Sutton Trust/ Carnegie social mobility summit held in London earlier this year, which brought together researchers from the United States, the UK, Canada and Australia.

All of them agreed that well-targeted investment in training those who work with young children was crucial, particularly in the UK, which  despite the fact it spends more than other countries on early childhood education has one of the biggest gaps in ‘school readiness’ between the richest and poorest four-and five-year-olds.

Children from the poorest fifth of homes in the US are on average nearly 22 months behind children from the richest homes in vocabulary tests at the age of four and five.

In the UK, the gap is 19 months, in Australia 14.5 months, and in Canada 10.6 months.

Despite having similar levels of inequality, Canada and Australia have greater social mobility than the UK and the US.

Development gaps between children become wider educational gaps as children grow older, making investment in early years crucial.

Although parenting and parental education were seen as the biggest reason for these gaps, the trust said that the education of early years and childcare workers matters because they can do a lot to improve the vocabulary, cognitive and social skills of young children, particularly when they are not gaining these skills at home.

During the early years session of the summit, Professor Jane Waldfogel from Columbia University and the London School of Economics, said that the strongest evidence on quality was provider education.

She argued that having a well-educated caregiver has a huge influence on quality, and having a teacher with a high level of education, who was using a lot of vocabulary and doing what a lot of well-educated mothers would do was crucially important.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, ‘The early years are vital to every child’s development, and essential to their future life chances and social mobility. The Government is right to continue investing in the early years, with more places for poorer two year-olds, but it is vital that the workforce has the skills and education to provide those youngsters with a good vocabulary and the cognitive and social skills that will prepare them for school.

‘Working with young children should not be seen as a lower skilled, lower paid or lower status profession than working with those over the age of five. Most of the gaps that we see between poorer and better off young people are evident from a very early age, so investing wisely at this stage can make a huge difference.’

The Sutton Trust will use the ideas from the summit to inform its future research work. £3 million is being invested over five years in an early years intervention fund, in partnership with the Impetus Trust.

Commenting on the report, Nansi Ellis, head of education policy and research at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said, 'ATL has always argued for well-qualified professionals in early years provision. Young children bring such a wide range of interests, experiences and needs into these settings, and staff must be able to work with this diversity in order to help children to continue to be excited about learning.

'We believe that this requires teams of professionals, with different skills, working together to reflect on and share practice and information about children. Early years qualified teachers should be involved in all aspects of children’s learning, whether in schools and nurseries, children’s centres or private day-care provision.

'Too many people assume that working with young children is an easy option, and yet as reports like this show, helping children to learn can be difficult and demanding. It is vital that we recruit highly skilled people into the early years, they need opportunities to continue to develop their knowledge and to pursue a career in the sector, and their pay needs to reflect the importance and complexity of their work.'

A Department for Education spokesperson said, ‘We agree that the skills of the early years workforce are important – that is why we commissioned Professor Cathy Nutbrown to look at improving the quality of early education and childcare qualifications. We will respond to her recommendations before the end of this year.

‘The early years are crucial in helping all children, particularly those from the most disadvantaged areas, develop and be prepared for school. All three- and four-year-olds are already entitled to free early education. We are expanding the entitlement so that more than a quarter of a million two-year-olds will have free early years education from September 2014.’

Pre-school gaps across the four nations

Gaps in vocabulary between children from the lowest income quintile and highest income quintile homes at age 4/5 in terms of months of development

Months of development

Source: Waldfogel & Washbrook, 2012

• Papers presented at the summit are available online at http://www.suttontrust.com/research/