There is widespread concern about the impact that the pandemic has had on children’s education and how to support children to ‘catch up’.
But this debate is overwhelmingly dominated by the role of schools and older children and, as every early years practitioner knows, ensuring that our youngest children get the best start in life is essential and should not be treated as the Cinderella of national recovery.
Organisations such as The Sutton Trust recognise the importance of the early years and are calling for additional funding. The funding currently available falls far short of what is required to ensure equality of opportunity for early years but, whatever its level, it must targeted towards the biggest issues to secure a sustainable future for childcare access and early learning.
We know that many childcare providers are struggling to make ends meet and that the Government funding rates do not cover the care that they provide. Our own research finds that this leads to shortages in the childcare available, with a third of local areas not having enough childcare for working parents and even greater shortages for disabled children and parents working atypical hours. However, there is huge variation in how early education settings are run and there are organisations in the system that are making a healthy profit.
As a result, there is variation in the quality of the care provided, most strikingly around the pay and qualifications of staff. The much-needed additional funding needs to be targeted on the measures that will help push up the quality of provision, most notably a well paid, well qualified and well respected workforce. This is essential if early years provision is to achieve its potential to narrow the achievement gap that opens up for disadvantaged children before they even start school.
Staff wages are the biggest cost for childcare providers meaning that they often inevitably get squeezed when providers are struggling financially. Overall the early years workforce is chronically underpaid for the vital role it takes on, with many workers leaving in order to get similar pay with less stress working in a supermarket. Government funding has risen below inflation while minimum wage has risen above inflation.
This workforce also needs to have the right resources and knowledge to be able to address and tackle the additional needs that will have arisen for young children. The Department for Education announced that the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework is changing from September 2021 with the aim of improving outcomes for children at age five, particularly in early language and literacy.
Getting timely and relevant support to staff is crucial and Coram Life Education’s new training workshops, starting this month, have been specifically designed for EYFS practitioners to help them plan, prepare and deliver an effective response to the new EYFS framework and Development Matters, the new non-statutory curriculum guidance for the EYFS framework. The workshops aim to help practitioners effectively deliver these changes and enable them to feel more equipped to respond to some of challenges that have emerged from the pandemic.
Quality of delivery matters but – to benefit vulnerable children – we must ensure that they come through the door to take up their free early education entitlements. Too many children still miss out on the benefits of early education, and we know that take up of childcare in general has dropped significantly through the pandemic. Urgent action is needed to ensure we do not have a missed generation of children falling behind their peers.
Concerted and targeted action is needed to make sure that all children are able to access the benefits of early education. Through running our parent-to-parent outreach programme, Parent Champions, we have seen the information, social and cultural barriers that families face when thinking about using early education and childcare. The pandemic has made these more acute than ever and a tailored and responsive approach is needed to help make sure the children who could benefit the most are able to access early education.
We know that the early years help to determine a child’s life chances. We know what to do. Now is the time for collaboration to help ensure we are getting the best support to the children who need it most.
Dr Carol Homden is CEO of Coram, the UK’s oldest children’s charity
