Ofsted highlights rich-poor divide in early years

Sir Michael said that there were those in the PVI sector demonstrating that they could make a difference when focusing on the poorest children, but that it was still his view that “schools are best placed to tackle disadvantage”.

But PACEY disagreed with Sir Michael that the best place for twos was in schools. It’s time to try something different.’.

Schools receiving pupils will also be expected to liaise with the school and local authority from which pupils have left. Instead there was evidence that early years places in schools were being “colonised by the middle classes”, he said. The rest are paid for by parents.

Sir Michael said the standard of care in England’s pre-schools, nurseries and childminder settings had improved markedly over the last decade. “Once these relationships are in place, parents are more likely to make use of free early education, and to recognise the importance of what they do to support their own child’s development and what a setting can also offer”. Between 2013 and last year, there was a marked increase in children reaching a good level of development at the end of their Reception year, from 52 per cent to 60 per cent.

“It’s the poorer children who stand the benefit the most from this type of environment at the earliest stage. But this quite clearly is not happening”.

The Department for Education said the number of children taking up The two-year-old offer had “increased dramatically” since its introduction and had nearly doubled to 157,000.

Ms Cowley said the government faced the task of persuading schools to offer more provision, but warned that a lot of schools “don’t necessarily have that capacity either”. In effect, that leaves 113,000 disadvantaged children without a nursery place.

In 2014, the scheme was expanded to cover a few 260,000 children, and local authorities struggled to ensure providers could offer enough places In the right areas.

“It is for parents to decide at what age their child should attend a childcare setting and for how long”.

He added: “But the reality of that these better off children don’t get any particular advantage from being in a school from the age of two – they would be just as well catered for from an educational perspective in a private nursery, a child minder or indeed at home”. “Early years has the potential to drive social mobility for a whole new generation”. Annual figures released by Ofsted showed 85 per cent of settings are now rated good or outstanding, compared with 78 per cent a year earlier.

Sir Michael said he thought health visitors, who come under local authority rather than NHS control in September, were the key to increasing this take-up. “Promoting readiness for school is already part of their role”.

Heading off criticism that education was not a health issue, Wilshaw said studies showed that poor education reduced life expectancy as much as smoking.

But while the quality of early years provision is at its highest since Ofsted started inspecting it 14 years ago, the gap between the disadvantaged children and their peers has not changed.

‘Incentives need to be offered not just to schools, but to all early years providers to work together with their local authorities and central Government to unlock provision, giving families as great a choice of places as possible, and work towards narrowing the attainment gap. Fear of what’s out there, they might have had a bad experience of school themselves, the complexity of application… it might be a whole range of reasons.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, said the closure of hundreds of Children’s Centres had undermined he early years sector.

As stated by Sir Michael, primary schools were the best place for the poorest two-year-olds for the smooth transition from nursery to Reception, because children who were already struggling may find it harder to adjust.