“Children learn and develop at a faster rate from birth to 5 years old than at any other time in their lives.”

This line, from the Department for Education’s early years foundation stage (EYFS) guidance, is about as unequivocal as it gets when considering the importance of learning and socialisation opportunities for children under 5 on their educational journey.

“High-quality early learning provides the foundation children need to fulfil their potential,” it adds.

Research has repeatedly backed up this view. For example, a paper from 2003 found that learning before the age of 5 lays the foundations for later life success, with developmental scores at 22 months being an accurate predictor of a person’s economic and social stability at the age of 26.

Meanwhile, a research evaluation by the Nuffield Foundation found “a longstanding body of research that suggests pre-school provision can have positive impacts on early childhood cognitive and non-cognitive skills in the short-term” and that “there is evidence of positive longer-term impacts of early childhood education and care provision for young people and adults in relation to exam performance [and] the labour market”.

Given this, it’s perhaps no surprise that a Sutton Trust survey of primary leaders found that 93 per cent said more time in early years settings helps to support school readiness, with 71 per cent saying it helped “considerably”.

However, post-pandemic, schools have noticed that the picture for children starting school has become more complex, with the levels of development much further behind for more pupils than many staff can remember.

Socially, emotionally and in terms of learning, primary schools are having to do a lot more to get children on track. So is that just a post-pandemic hangover that will resolve or a longer-term problem in need of redress? And what can schools do about it?

Not just a post-pandemic problem

What’s clear from the statistics is that this might not just be about missing nursery time owing to pandemic-related closures: early learning opportunities are being reduced, with Ofsted data revealing that between December 2019 and 31 August 2023, 700 settings classed as providing non-domestic-premise childcare - chiefly nurseries and pre-schools - closed.

What’s more, analysis of closure data by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) found that areas of deprivation have been hit hard by these closures. Specifically, in 2022-23, 37 per cent of the nursery closures were in the 30 per cent most deprived areas of England.

In 2021-22, the situation was not much better, with 34 per cent of nursery closures in the 30 per cent most deprived areas. Closure hotspots included south and east Manchester, the Leeds/Bradford area, large sections of the North East and areas surrounding Bristol.

This is especially damning given that the Nuffield evaluation cited above noted: “Positive impacts [of early years education] are larger for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Risk of ‘childcare deserts’

It’s a situation that Robin Walker, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, tells Tes he finds worrying because of the risk of “childcare deserts” appearing around the country - a view no doubt formed in part by insights heard during sessions for the committee’s report on the early years, published in July.

“We heard that parents are finding it harder to find ECEC [early childhood education and care] places for their children as a result of the high rate of closures,” the report said.

“Hundreds of parents told us, in written evidence, about their difficulties in accessing provision, including long commutes to settings outside of their local area and long waiting lists. Many told us that they had to apply for a childcare place even before their children were born.”

So why are settings closing? In a word, money. The committee’s report noted that for many settings, the government’s funding for free 15 or 30 hours of childcare, which parents are entitled to when a child turns 3, is not enough to cover costs.

The key issue is that if parents don’t pay for additional hours - as is more likely in deprived areas - the funding does not provide the settings with enough to cover increasing costs, such as energy and food.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, which has had to close 90 of the settings it runs in just four years, says he has witnessed this first-hand.

“Because we have a greater propensity to offer the free entitlement, our income isn’t generated from parents taking additional hours. A lot of [our] children just take the free entitlement only. It’s the underfunding of the free entitlement that, frankly, causes these issues,” he says.

Fewer providers offering free hours

This issue also means that many other nurseries are simply not offering the free 15- or 30-hour options, with a report by Nesta noting that, compared with 2020, there are 6 per cent fewer providers offering 15 hours and 4 per cent fewer delivering the 30-hour entitlement.

The impact of this has been uneven too, with Derbyshire seeing a 38 per cent reduction in the number of providers offering the free hours entitlement, while in Greenwich it has risen 19 per cent.

While the impact of all this is felt first in the EYFS sector, Leitch says it is now being felt in primary and secondary education, too, owing to the reduction in educational and socialisation opportunities for young children.

“In the 20 years I’ve been involved in early years, I have never seen so much concern from colleagues working in the primary and secondary field about how our children are arriving at school,” he says. 

“They see the link between good early childhood education and care, and the remedial work they have to do.”

He believes that rather than the pandemic driving the problems that primaries are seeing, it likely just exacerbated and highlighted existing problems in EYFS.

Importance of school readiness

Tiffnie Harris, primary and data specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, says the pandemic made it clear just how important early years provision is for school readiness. Primaries are having to adapt to the challenges they are now seeing.

“Children’s social skills aren’t developed as much with regards to playing, turn-taking and sharing,” says Daniel Woodrow, headteacher of St Gregory CEVC Primary School in Sudbury, Suffolk.

“We noticed this after the pandemic but it has not improved. Lots of time has to be spent teaching the children how to manage being in the same space as others, including following routines, before the more academic learning can take place.”

Matthew Jessop, headteacher at Crosthwaite Church of England Primary School in Cumbria, is another seeing this issue: “We’re seeing increasing numbers of children starting with less developed skills. In a cohort of 12 or 13 kids, that’s gone from one [child] to six or seven,” he says.

Catherine Lock, director of education at the Diocese of Ely Multi-Academy Trust, says she has seen this, too, with a clear gap in school readiness among “children who have had fewer opportunities for socialisation and learning with peers”.

She continues: “That manifests most critically in the under-development of speech and language, which provides the building blocks for every element of education, from understanding and being able to follow instruction to communicating ideas.”

‘Needs that have never been addressed’

James Bowen, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, says he is also aware of the speech and language issue: “I am hearing people saying, ‘We’ve got more and more children coming into school with a wide range of needs that haven’t apparently been identified.’

“For example, they are saying pupils are coming into school with speech and language needs that have never been addressed.”

This echoes a recent report from Speech and Language UK, which said thousands of children arrive in school with underdeveloped speech and language abilities, and the views of Tes columnist Helen Pinnington, who wrote recently that it “seems there are more children arriving in school with difficulties related to communication and language”.

Jessop concurs and says his school has had to purchase a speech and language scheme to address the issue.

Picking up on this as part of a wider trend, Walker says he is also concerned that closures may mean the needs of more children who may have a special educational need or disability are not picked up until they start school, missing out on key opportunities for early intervention.

“The problem is that you end up with children being assessed later and children with a high level of need arriving at school having never been assessed before, or going into nurseries that aren’t well set up to support them,” he tells Tes.

Lorna Beard, strategic director of education at the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen), says it is a concern her members are raising more often.

“We are increasingly hearing that more children with additional needs are entering Reception without having had needs identified, which means they may have missed out on support in their earliest years,” she says.

“The increased strain this can place on school resources can be detrimental to the efficient and effective education of all learners, as well as having an impact on the individual child and their family.”

Intervention is needed

Felicity Gillespie, director of Kindred², a charitable foundation supporting early years child development, says that despite the DfE’s awareness of the importance of early years education, actions speak louder than words.

“The question I have for the government is, what is the cost of nearly half of children being behind before they begin their education? And what would the benefit be if 95 per cent were where they should be?”

So what’s the solution for primary schools? Government intervention is what most stakeholders believe would have the biggest impact.

The government though, would point out that back in its March Budget, it unveiled plans to boost childcare provision, chiefly by reducing the age at which parents can access free childcare, thereby enabling children to start their education journey sooner.

From April 2024, eligible working parents will get 15 free hours for two-year-olds; from September 2024, 15 free hours will be available for children aged nine months and above; and from September 2025, 30 free hours will be available from nine months until the start of school.

Hourly funding rates for nurseries that provide this will, from April 2024, be provided at £11.22 for under 2s and £8.28 for two-year-olds. Meanwhile, a new rate of £5.88 for three- and four-year-olds will be introduced, a rise of 26p per hour.

More nurseries ‘pushed into deficit’

Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of Early Education, says this is not enough. “We are concerned that funding rates for three- and four-year-olds, who take up the bulk of provision and therefore determine the viability of the entire sector, are only increasing in line with inflation.”

Many more nurseries will be pushed into deficit as a result, she says - a point also made by Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of NDNA. “The suggested rates will not keep pace [with inflation],” she says. “For many nurseries, this will be too little, too late.”

The Commons Education Select Committee report noted this, too, commenting that with more funded hours on offer, the funding rates are crucial to the overall financial health of the sector.

“Given that most childcare places will soon be government funded, it is vital that the department gets this right or the already struggling childcare market will see even more closures,” it said.

In response to these concerns, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are confident in the strength of our childcare market to deliver the largest ever expansion in childcare in England’s history, with our own data showing the number of early years staff and places increased in 2023.

“However, we know there is more to be done, which is why we are also investing hundreds of millions of pounds to increase the rates we pay for the free government hours, as well as preparing to launch a national recruitment campaign and establishing more apprenticeship routes into the sector.”

Many providers, though, are not confident that they can afford this, with research from the Early Education and Childcare Coalition finding that only 17 per cent of nurseries plan to increase funded places on offer.

Furthermore, even if the costs can be covered, there is another issue - staffing. The DfE’s own report for the new funded hours says 144,000 more children could be in childcare from the 2024-25 academic year as a result of this change.

A report by Nesta says this would require an 8 per cent expansion of the early years workforce, to between 25,000 and 27,500 staff. It notes, though, that as no more than 581 individuals have started early years initial teacher training courses in the past five years, this is unlikely to be reached.

Meanwhile, the number of students on early years apprenticeships leading to level 2 or 3 qualifications has fallen by 40 per cent in recent years, from 27,200 in 2016-17 to 16,200 in 2021-22.

What’s more, the workforce for EYFS is contracting, with graduate staff and those holding level 2 and level 3 qualifications all declining since 2019 - with reasons ranging from low morale and poor pay to a lack of flexible working, cited in a report by the Early Years Alliance.

Concern that benefits will be lost

Sarah Cattan, director of fairer start at Nesta, said all this underlines that while the new childcare offer has positive intentions, without funding and more trained staff, the benefits that good EYFS provision can have for a child’s entire education will be lost.

“The evidence suggests that having an early years professional with qualified teacher status in settings improves outcomes for children, yet the number of such graduates has declined by 77 per cent over the past decade,” she says.

“Pay and conditions need to improve in the sector more widely to ensure a sustainable workforce for the long term.”

These are some big, interconnected issues - and ones any future government will have to fix.

Labour has already acknowledged some of this, with an early years review led by former chief inspector of schools Sir David Bell that will look at a raft of topics affecting the sector, including workforce concerns and how to ensure adequate provision nationwide.

One notable element of that latter point is that it will consider if space freed up in primary schools owing to the falling primary population could be used to host nurseries, ensuring that there is suitable provision in more locations.

This is something Bowen at NAHT says has merit: “We know there is going to be space in schools and, with the increase in funded hours - which Labour has indicated it will retain - there will be a need for more capacity in the early years.”

Bringing this into schools could also provide more consistency for pupils and parents as they will be in one setting for longer, helping to ease the transition to primary.

“By the time they enter school at age 4 or 5, we’ll have already closed any gaps but also help them thrive in that transition,” says Bowen. “Parents do like the sense that those children are with that school for seven years or a decade, and there’s a huge convenience to it all.”

Woodrow says there have already been benefits from running their own nursery. “The difference between children who have attended nursery - ours or another - [and those who have not] at the start of their Reception year is becoming more pronounced.”

Not quick, easy or cheap

However, this does not mean it is a quick, easy or cheap policy. For one, Bowen notes, you’d have to do a lot of retrofitting of rooms to make them suitable for nursery-aged children, such as ensuring separate loos and spaces to prepare food.

Second, and more importantly, the sector will need more people to become EYFS professionals.

“You can’t take a Year 4 teacher and say, ‘You’re going to work in the nursery’; you need specialist early years staff, and that requires people to be available and willing to work in the sector,” he says.

Given that the teaching profession has its own ongoing recruitment and retention crisis, it is clearly not a situation that can be easily resolved or that anyone has obvious answers to.

However, Harris says these issues must be addressed by whoever is in power in the years ahead to ensure “children are given the best possible start to their education”.

Hannah Fearn is a freelance journalist

Additional reporting by Dan Worth

For the latest education news and analysis delivered directly to your inbox every weekday morning, sign up for the Tes Daily newsletter