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By Rachel Lawler

 

The from the government鈥檚 Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) has concluded that early childhood education and care in England is 鈥済enerally sufficient鈥� and of a 鈥済enerally high鈥� quality.

 

The report says that the quality of provision has improved over the past 16 years, which it said was linked to improvements in staff qualifications as well as other areas.

 

However, the report also said that there was scope to increase the quality of provision in some areas. It also argued that it is particularly important to focus on improving the quality of settings that offer places to two-year-old children.

 

The report identified a number of potential targets to help improve quality, noting that staff training and development are closely linked to quality across the sector. Higher staffs to child ratios and offering specialist SEND provision were also linked to higher quality provision.

 

The Alliance welcomed the study鈥檚 findings, which demonstrate an improvement in quality despite the sector鈥檚 current struggle with funding.

 

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Alliance, said: 鈥淔ew working in the sector will be surprised to hear that staff qualifications, training and development, and low staff-child ratios all contribute to better quality provision 鈥� but of course, at a time when so many providers are facing such financial pressure, this is easier said than done.鈥�

 

Neil added: 鈥淭here is simply no doubt that the government鈥檚 continued underfunding of the early years sector is making the retention of quality staff and maintaining of ratios increasingly difficult, and if this doesn鈥檛 change soon, we are likely to see a real downward pressure on the quality of provision in a growing number of settings.鈥�

 

鈥淎s such, rather than using these findings to congratulate themselves on a job well done, we hope that this study serves as a wake-up call to those in government of the value of the services that they are currently putting at risk.鈥�