Early years funding boost: why the UK government is prioritising getting children school ready

The UK government is putting money into early years education in England. A funding boost of £75 million is intended to increase the number of staff and places for children in nurseries.

The pupil premium for early years is also rising by 45%: this funding is allocated to nurseries to help them educate children from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose parents are, for instance, receiving benefit payments linked to low income. The rise in rate means that nurseries could now receive up to £570 per eligible child each year.

These announcements follow Keir Starmer’s Plan for Change speech, which reiterated five “national missions” for his government. Among them was early years education. Starmer stated a commitment to providing “the best start in life for every child”.

Evidence shows that good early years education has a long-term positive effect on children’s attainment, progress at school and their social and behavioural development. The government is absolutely right to make this a top priority.

In particular, the government is focusing on making sure children are ready for school. The Plan for Change sets a target of 75% of five-year-olds in England “ready to learn when they start school”.

School readiness

School readiness is an important concept in early years education. It relates to how well prepared children are academically, socially and emotionally to succeed at school.

Research has shown that there are numerous skills children need to develop to help them cope and succeed at school. For instance, schools inspectorate Ofsted has highlighted the importance of storytelling and reading stories aloud to children in the early years. Listening to stories helps build children’s listening and attention skills, which supports the ability to concentrate and manage distractions at school.

Currently, how ready a child is to start school is strongly influenced by their family’s wealth. According to social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, the poorest children are already 11 months of learning behind their peers from richer families when they start school.

And a report from Ofsted states that by the age of five, boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are already lagging behind girls from the same backgrounds in communication and language skills. The increase in early years pupil premium will be intended to address these gaps.

In England, the early years foundation stage statutory framework sets the standards that all early years providers, such as nurseries and childminders, must meet. This includes a set of overarching principles, including the need to view children as unique, the importance of establishing positive relationships, developing enabling environments and acknowledgement that children learn at different rates.

The early years framework is underpinned by seven areas of learning. The “prime” areas of learning are communication and language, physical development, and personal, social and emotional development. “Specific” areas are literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive arts and design.

Although all these areas of learning are important, children need a foundation in the prime areas to develop effectively in the specific areas. For example, evidence shows that oral language helps children with literacy.

High quality early years education supports school readiness and children who do not attend pre-school may be disadvantaged. The new funding for the sector reflects Starmer’s commitment to honouring the previous Conservative government’s intention to extend the free hours of childcare available to working parents to 30 hours.

But we know that skilled, well-trained and knowledgeable staff are a vital element of high-quality early years education and care. There has been a serious lack of investment in the early years workforce, and the government’s plans on how to remedy this are vague.

Too soon for school?

Some academics are concerned that concentrating on “school readiness” promotes the idea that education in the early years should be seen as a preparation for what comes next. They are concerned that children may be forced to participate in more formal approaches to learning before they are developmentally ready. They favour a more informal, child-centred approach, which includes a strong emphasis on learning through play.

We know from research that children learn when adults play with them. Skilled practitioners use questioning effectively to extend children’s thinking. Children in the early years are also likely to benefit from a balance of activities including small adult-led group activities and freely chosen play which is supported by adults.

But we also know that explicit, direct teaching is important for children’s development. This ensures that they develop the essential foundations of knowledge which provide the building blocks for future learning. Children learn from structured activities where adults teach aspects of early reading, writing and mathematics directly to children.

Structured teaching enables skilled practitioners to model the knowledge and skills that children need, particularly in aspects such as early reading, writing, mathematics, communication and social and emotional development.

A professionalised, well qualified and adequately rewarded early years workforce is crucial to ensuring high-quality early years provision. Lack of routes for progression and promotion and poor salaries suggest that the early years sector is undervalued and underfunded. The government urgently needs to address these issues if the sector is to retain the best staff.