Contemporary Issues in the Early Years

Gillian Pugh, Bernadette Duffy, Gillian Pugh, Bernadette Duffy

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781446266410, 9781446266403
• eBook ISBN: 9781446293331
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

If you are a student or practitioner in the early years sector, you need to develop a rounded understanding of key issues in this fast-moving field. This new and updated edition provides a critical examination of the essential issues in early years policy and practice. With contributions from highly regarded practitioners and researchers, this book accessibly balances theory and practical concerns.

The Sixth Edition has been extensively revised to include:

• A new chapter on Child Protection and Safeguarding
• Coverage of the new EYFS
• Theory and research evidence
• A Companion Website, highlighting further reading and current policies and frameworks

You can visit the Companion Website at  to view a video from the authors, and also access study materials including:

• Points for discussion
• Reflective tasks
• Further reading
• Web links

PART 1

Policy and Research

CHAPTER 1

The Policy Agenda for Early Childhood Services¹

Gillian Pugh

Chapter contents

• A brief history

• An integrated strategy for young children and their parents?

• Availability, affordability and sustainability

• Some policy milestones

• Joined-up services?

• Quality in service provision

• Support for parents – or parents as supporters?

• Staff training and qualifications

• Can the gap be narrowed in the early years?

• Some challenges

The past two decades have seen considerable developments in the availability and organisation of early childhood services as early childhood remains high on the policy agenda. This period has not been without its challenges, reflecting changing political priorities and economic circumstances, and opportunities have been missed to create a more coherent strategy for young children and their families. This chapter considers these changes and raises a number of issues that are considered further in the chapters that follow.

A brief history

Since the establishment of the first nursery school by Robert Owen, in Scotland in 1816, the development of early education in the United Kingdom was until recently remarkably slow by comparison to much of mainland Europe. In 1870 publicly funded education became compulsory at the age of 5 years, but from the earliest days children as young as 2 years were admitted to primary schools. During the course of the twentieth century successive governments supported the principle of free nursery education but seldom found the resources to fund it. Even with the gradual establishment of nursery schools and, during the 1914–18 war, some public daycare centres, the predominant form of early education in the United Kingdom was for 130 years state primary schools. The lack of appropriate provision within the education system led to two parallel developments during the second half of the twentieth century: on the one hand, the emergence during the 1960s through the voluntary sector of the playgroup movement; and, on the other, the growth of full daycare to meet the needs of working parents, initially through childminding and, additionally since the 1990s, through private sector day nurseries.

This legacy is important in understanding the state of early childhood services at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The second edition of this book, published in 1996, described services in the United Kindom as discretionary, with low levels of public funding compared with mainland Europe, with a heavy reliance on the private and voluntary sectors, with diversity of provision but little choice for parents, lacking in coordination between providers from different agencies, and with different services having different aims and purposes, and being used by different client groups – working parents, children ‘in need’ and parents able to use part-time nurseries (Pugh, 1996).

The levels of concern expressed here were reflected in a number of prestigious national reports published during the 1990s, notably the Rumbold Report Starting with Quality (DES, 1990), largely ignored by the government at the time, but very widely used subsequently as the basis for best practice in early years settings. During the 1980s and early 1990s there was a lack of political conviction that young children mattered and a view that children were the private responsibility of their parents. But there were also unclear and conflicting messages about what was required – should an early years policy be most concerned about preparing children for school, or with daycare for working parents? Should it provide stimulation for a developing brain, or equal opportunities for women? Was it about cost savings for employers, able to retain staff when they became parents, or about reducing the benefit bill for single parents, enabling them to return to the workforce? Or was prevention the main driver – whether of developmental delay in children or juvenile crime?

The tide began to turn in 1995 as additional funding for the education of 4-year-olds was announced but, controversially, the funding was to be made available to parents through vouchers that could be redeemed in private, voluntary or local authority nurseries. A pilot scheme was rolled out amid mounting criticism, but full implementation was stopped by the election of a Labour government in 1997. Fifteen years later the expansion of services for our youngest children has been considerable, and this chapter assesses the extent to which the vision of what was called for during the 1990s has been realised.

An integrated strategy for young children and their parents?

Throughout the years of the Labour administration (1997–2010) the expansion of early years services has to be seen within the context of the 2003 Green Paper Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003) – described by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at its launch as the most significant development for children in over 30 years – and the subsequent 2004 Children Act. The report took prevention as its starting point and accepted the view that to support all children better through well coordinated mainstream services was more likely to benefit those in need and at risk than a separate child protection service. Based on a review of relevant research and widespread consultation with professionals and young people, the five key themes of the Every Child Matters policy initiative were

• strong foundations in the early years

• a stronger focus on parenting and families

• earlier interventions and effective protection

• better accountability and integration locally, regionally and nationally

• reform of the workforce.

The overall aim of the Green Paper and the subsequent 2004 Children Act was to improve outcomes for all children and narrow the gap between those who do well and those who do not, through reconfiguring services around children and families. The focus was on entitlements for children through five main outcomes:

• Being healthy – enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle.

• Staying safe – being protected from harm and neglect.

• Enjoying and achieving – getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood.

• Making a positive contribution – being involved with the community and society and not engaging in antisocial or offending behaviour.

• Economic well-being – not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life.

The long-term vision that emerged through the Children Act and the implementation paper Every Child Matters: Change for Children (DfES, 2004) was the development of integrated education, health and social care, through children’s centres, extended schools and improved services for young people; better support for parents provided by better qualified staff; and targeted services planned and delivered within a universal context.

At central government level, responsibility for most services for children, young people and families was brought within a single directorate at what is now called the Department for Education under the direction of a Minister for Children. Children’s health remained within the Department of Health, although a parallel National Service Framework for children’s health was developed (DH/DfES, 2004). In local areas, directors for social services and education were replaced by a director for children’s services, and an integrated mechanism for planning and delivering services – Children’s Trusts – were established. There was also a common assessment framework, an integrated workforce strategy, an integrated inspection framework (see Chapter 5) and a new curriculum framework (see Chapter 7). It was a huge and ambitious agenda.

Throughout three Labour administrations the increase in services for young children was driven by two parallel forces. The first was the commitment from both Prime Ministers and Chancellors to eliminating child poverty by 2020, a commitment which drove the increase of childcare as a means of enabling women to return to work and thus increase family income. There was also a growing awareness of the gap, in terms of overall well-being and achievement, between children who do well and their peers who do not.

The second was two growing bodies of research: neurological research suggesting that early learning contributes to the developing architecture of the brain – pointing to the importance of early learning; and evidence from developmental psychology that the earliest interactions between child and carers provide the cultural structure that underpins the development of intellectual schema – showing what kind of learning is best (Sylva and Pugh, 2005).

The Coalition government, whilst taking office at a time of severe economic restraint, has in many respects continued to support the development of early years services, as this and other chapters will illustrate. Supporting Families in the Foundation Years (DfE/DH, 2011b) sets out the government’s vision for what it calls the foundation years and in so doing responds to a number of reviews commissioned during the early days of government: Marmot’s review of inequalities in health (Marmot, 2010), Frank Field’s review on poverty and life chances, which placed a strong emphasis on the foundation years (Field, 2010), Graham Allen’s reports on early intervention (Allen, 2011a, 2011b) and the proposals for a revised Early Years Foundation Stage by Clare Tickell (Tickell, 2011). This vision includes:

• a strong focus on child development

• putting parents and families at the heart of services

• intervening early and using evidence-based interventions

• working with skilled professionals

• working in partnership with the sector.

The interweaving of these various agendas – the anti-poverty agenda driving the increases in ‘daycare’; the research into child development and children’s learning driving ‘early education’; a strong focus on early intervention because it saves both human suffering and, hopefully, greater expenditure later; all within a context of severe cuts in the public expenditure budget – has led to considerable tensions between increasing the quantity of provision whilst ensuring that high quality is maintained.

Some policy milestones

The policy agenda in England since 1997 has been considerable:

• The initial National Childcare Strategy (DFEE, 1998) included an expansion of nursery education and childcare from birth to 14, together with the establishment of Sure Start Local Programmes and early excellence centres, and a programme of neighbourhood nurseries.

• The 10-year childcare strategy, Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children (HM Treasury, 2004) aimed to increase the accessibility of good quality affordable childcare and other support for parents. It included extending paid maternity leave (nine months from April 2007 and 12 months by 2010); increasing the hours of free nursery education from 12.5 to 15 per week (from 2010); reforming childcare regulation and inspection; reforming the career and training structure of the early years workforce; and improving the childcare part of the Working Tax Credit to help low and middle income families with childcare costs.

• The 2006 Childcare Act brought together earlier provision in order to create some 3,000 children’s centres, and placed a duty on local authorities to secure sufficient childcare for working parents, and to ensure services are integrated. Local authorities were also required to improve outcomes for children and to narrow the gap between those who do well and those who do not.

• The Early Years Foundation Stage was introduced in 2008 to create a framework from birth to the end of Reception year (DfES, 2007). A revised and ‘slimmer’ version was introduced in September 2012 (DfE, 2012a).

• From 2010 free nursery education has been extended to 2-year-olds in disadvantaged areas, with promises to rise to 40% by 2014, although there is some concern as to how this will be funded.

• Improved qualifications and training for early years workers was a priority for the Children’s Workforce Development Council until it was closed in 2012. Nutbrown’s report (2012) included recommendations for the expansion of this work, although many of her recommendations have been rejected by government (DfE 2013).

• An integrated inspection service for all early years services was set up within Ofsted.

• There has been a recognition that services must meet the needs of parents as well as children. The 2007 Children’s Plan stated ‘government does not bring up children – parents do – so government needs to do more to back parents and families’ (DCSF, 2007: 5). Supporting Families in the Foundation Years sees parents and families as at the heart of services (DfE/DH, 2011b), and there is a strong emphasis on parenting programmes.

• The beginnings of better coordination with health, through an expansion of the Healthy Child Programme (see Chapter 10), proposals to combine the 2-year-old health review with the EYFS assessment, and the promise of more health visitors, particularly in children’s centres.

Despite these very considerable developments in early ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Advertisement
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the editors
• About the contributors
• Introduction
• Part 1   Policy and Research
• Part 2   Practice
• Part 3   Workforce
• Index