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Why the early years?. ? If the race is already halfway run even before children begin school, then we clearly need to examine what happens in the earliest years." (Esping-Andersen, 2005)? Like it or not, the most important mental and behavioural patterns, once established, are difficult to chan
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2. Why the early years? “ If the race is already halfway run even before children begin school, then we clearly need to examine what happens in the earliest years.” (Esping-Andersen, 2005)
“ Like it or not, the most important mental and behavioural patterns, once established, are difficult to change once children enter school.” (Heckman & Wax, 2004). So there are 2 compelling reasons to think that the early years are potentially important in addressing social mobility – lots of inequality is already apparent by the time children start school, and children may be less amenable to change once they enter school. But this does not tell us how much policies can reduce inequality in the early years, or what policies might be most effective? So there are 2 compelling reasons to think that the early years are potentially important in addressing social mobility – lots of inequality is already apparent by the time children start school, and children may be less amenable to change once they enter school. But this does not tell us how much policies can reduce inequality in the early years, or what policies might be most effective?
5. Effective Pre-School and Primary Education EPPE
6. EPPE STUDY
7. Quality and Duration matter (months of developmental advantage on literacy)
8. Effects of child, home, and pre-school compared
10. Five areas were particularly important:
Quality of the adult-child verbal interaction.
Knowledge and understanding of the curriculum.
Knowledge of how young children learn.
Adults skill in supporting children in resolving conflicts.
Helping parents to support children’s learning at home.
11. Data on every primary school child for 3 years (2001/2, 2002/3, 2003/4).
Age 7 – English, Maths, Science
Age 11- English, Maths, science
Data on child characteristics
N = 600k+ pupils in each year,
N = 15,771 primary schools Measuring the effectiveness of primary schools This paper provides descriptive statistics on cohort one and two of the EPPE sample at the end of year 5 (aged 10).
Assessments were collected from a total of 1,164 children from 6 local authorities
143 in cohort 1 and
1021 in cohort 2, which constitute 40% of the total sample.
Total sample from these two cohort 194 children in cohort one and 1191 children in cohort 2.
This paper provides descriptive statistics on cohort one and two of the EPPE sample at the end of year 5 (aged 10).
Assessments were collected from a total of 1,164 children from 6 local authorities
143 in cohort 1 and
1021 in cohort 2, which constitute 40% of the total sample.
Total sample from these two cohort 194 children in cohort one and 1191 children in cohort 2.
12.
We are looking at children's progress relative to themselves not to the sample as a whole.
We did not include year 2 data because the scores are not comparable. We have Sats results for year 2.
We are looking at children's progress relative to themselves not to the sample as a whole.
We did not include year 2 data because the scores are not comparable. We have Sats results for year 2.
14. Effects upon child achievement -age 11
16. What matters
17. Conclusions From age 2 all children benefit from pre-school.
The quality of preschool matters.
The duration of preschool matters in the early school years.
Part-time has equal benefit to full-time.
Quality of preschool effects persist until at least the end of primary school.
High quality preschool can protect a child from consequences of attending low effective school.
19. National Evaluation of Sure Start Local context analysis
study of communities over time
Implementation
what do programmes do
Impact
do programmes affect children and families
Cost-effectiveness
how programmes spend money – and is it effective
20. Setting up SSLPs It takes longer than anticipated to set up SSLPs
Most SSLPs did not approach fully operational level of expenditure until after 3 years
21. Changes in Sure Start communities - 2000 to 2005;
22. Impact evidence, 2005: (3-year-olds) In Sure Start Areas Among non-teenage mothers (86%):
greater child social competence
Fewer behaviour problems
less negative parenting Among teenage mothers (14%):
Less social competence
More behaviour problems
Poorer verbal ability
Among lone parent families (40%):
Poorer verbal ability
Among workless households (33%):
Poorer verbal ability
23. Huge differences between programmes. 1.Did we tell them to do the wrong thing, or 2. did they not do well enough what we told them: ANSWER: both Key dimensions of proficiency:
Effective governance and management / leadership
Informal but professional ethos of centre
Empowerment of service providers and users
25. What happened next, 2008 Of 14 outcomes 7 showed a significant difference between SSLP and non-SSLP areas, i.e. a SSLP effect
5 outcomes clearly indicated beneficial effects for SSLPs. These were for:
child positive social behaviour (cooperation, sharing, empathy)
child independence / self-regulation (works things out for self, perseverance, self-control)
Parenting Risk Index (observer rating + parent-child relationship, harsh discipline, home chaos)
home learning environment
total service use
In addition there were better results in SSLPs for:
child immunisations
child accidents
But these 2 outcomes could have been influenced by timing effects
26. What does this mean for the future? These benefits in terms of parenting and child development have a good prognosis. All are desirable effects that are likely to lead to better long-term outcomes for children
we have good evidence (e.g. from EPPE) that higher independence and higher HLE are likely to lead to better long-term outcomes both intellectually and socially. The other beneficial outcomes support this view
27. Reasons for differing results Amount of exposure
It takes 3 years for a programme to be fully functional. Therefore
in the first phase children / families were not exposed to fully functional programmes for much of the child’s life
in the second phase children / families are exposed to fully functional programmes for all child’s life
Quality of services
SSLPs have been reorganised as SSCCs with clearer focus to services following lessons from earlier years, and NESS
early on staff had a lot to learn. As knowledge and experience have been acquired over 7 years, SSLPs have matured in functioning
hence it is likely that children / families are currently exposed to more effective services than in the early years of Sure Start
28. Conclusion The impact of Sure Start has improved, probably because of:
increasing quality of service provision, greater attention to the hard to reach, the move to children’s centres
as well as
the greater exposure of children and families
These positive results are modest but are evidence that the impact of Sure Start programmes is improving
29. CONCLUSIONS
Programmes have improved over the years and Children’s Centres are in the right direction
Many examples of good practice
There is still great variation between best and worst
Need to learn from most effective Children’s Centres
30. LESSONS from NESS Inter-agency collaboration is essential for good services
Engagement of health services important for Sure Start. Health has contact with all families from pregnancy
However good services are, children and families need to be in touch with them; those with the greatest need may be hardest to reach and engage
Trust is fundamental to parental engagement
Staff capacity problems, many staff inadequately trained for the work to be done and staff turnover is very disruptive
We vastly underestimated the skill requirements in establishing a program, particularly true for large capital projects
31. My personal choice for top priority Need to increase focus on child language development
32. How has it all come together? Policy on early years, childcare and parenting Maternity leave extended to 12 months, paid leave for 9 months
New right to request flexible working for all parents with children up to age 6
Nearly 2.5 million children using 3,500 Sure Start Children’s Centres
In early years -single play based framework,
Early Years Foundation Stage -EYFS
Legislation in progress to make Children’s Centres statutory duty for local authorities
33. What does it cost, what is it worth? 1997 spend on EY and CC: £2.1 Billion 2010 spend on EY and CC: £7.8 billion
34. What have we learned It is difficult, every structure requires a different kind of joining up
Tensions in policy: optimal child development vs. flexibility for parents
Pilot interventions much easier to implement than systems reform, and there is confusion between the 2
Community programmes shift the curve but may miss most disadvantaged;
The most promising interventions need rigorous evaluation, and are sometimes hard to scale up;
Common feature of all successful programs is the quality of staff: well trained, motivated, and clear in their purpose.
Staff investment is least appealing, delivering more is always more attractive than delivering better.
35. For more information
