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The Family and Childcare Trust has today released a report titled ‘Putting quality at the heart of the early years’, which has called on the government to invest in an Early Excellence Fund.

 

The fund would be designed to support four key aims: to ensure there is at least one experienced early years graduate in every setting providing free childcare, to financially incentivise smaller settings to provide training for non-graduate staff, to establish networks for practitioners to share expertise and connect with early intervention services, and to increase the number of qualified early years special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs).

 

The Family and Childcare Trust has estimated that the cost required to meet these aims would be £111 million.

 

Claire Harding, head of research at Family Childcare Trust, said that investing in high quality childcare is a rare opportunity to support families’ social mobility.

 

“We are concerned that the lack of investment in quality in the early years will mean many families will struggle to access childcare that is good enough in quality to boost their children’s outcomes,” Claire said.

 

The report also identified a further seven key opportunities for improvement including nurturing the links between childcare settings and parents to support home learning, improving the physical environment of settings to promote physical activity and integrating childcare with early help services in children’s centres and elsewhere.

 

Neil Leitch, chief executive at the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said that at a time when there is so much focus on the affordability and accessibility of childcare, he welcomes the report’s recognition of the vital importance of quality early years provision.

 

“That said, the introduction of an Early Excellence Fund would not address the fundamental historic underfunding issues facing early years providers. To put it bluntly, additional funding for, for example, more graduates or SENCOs will only be effective if there are enough early years providers still in business to employ them and as it stands, the ongoing lack of investment by government has left many in the sector struggling to stay afloat,” Neil said.

 

“That is not to say that investment in such areas is not important; on the contrary, it is vital that settings are financially able to hire - and support the professional development of - high-quality practitioners. But any such initiatives, while undoubtedly positive, can only work as part of a wider move by government to ensure that the early years is adequately funded.”