Problems get worse the longer you leave them. And the worse those problems get, the more it ends up costing you to fix them.
These two beliefs are generally accepted as fact and thus early intervention is usually a key consideration in how governments - particularly those strapped for cash - make decisions.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the economic situation it has laid out, Labour seems to be leaning on this idea more than the Conservative and coalition governments did in the previous 14 years.
While for the latter early intervention was always part of the solution, for the the current government, it seems to be the solution in much of what it is trying to do.
Early intervention in SEND
Educational under-performance by disadvantaged children? Labour has been clear that reform of 0-5 education - with more available and better-structured provision - to give kids the best start is the priority.
Under-performing schools? Labour wants an Ofsted report card to spot early problems and Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams to nip them in the bud.
The SEND crisis? Early identification and support has been identified as the way in which the vast increase in demand for education, health and care plans and special schools can be reduced.
School improvement plans
Schools should be under no illusion that this will require them to engage in some strategic consideration. They will be expected to play a key role in early education (see our analysis of the potential issues with that). They will be expected to have robust systems for discovering and supporting early signs of special educational needs and disabilities in a more structured way than they have been asked to before. And they will be subject to intervention should they show any signs of weakness, no matter what their theoretical headline Ofsted grade would be.
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Indeed, on everything from behaviour to parental engagement, they will need to have systems that prove an early intervention emphasis is in place.
Culturally, most schools try to do this already. But in terms of ramping up both the implementation of early intervention and the monitoring and accountability around it, it isn’t just schools that will have much to think about: there are some important aspects for the government to consider, too.
SEND interventions
First, for early identification to be effective, there is a minimal level of resource required. Schools will tell you that we are far under that level. Training, funding streams, infrastructure, multi-disciplinary networks and more are needed. Is the government going to finance all that as part of its early intervention push?
Second, early identification requires careful monitoring for - and correction against - false positives.
For example, particularly when focusing on children aged up to 7, the chances of a normal developmental pathway being misdiagnosed as SEND are not insignificant. If you do make an error, you risk spending cash where it is not needed (leaving less money for genuine challenges), incorrectly labelling a child and, as a result, having a disproportionate effect on the rest of their education, and creating a belief in an intervention’s success - and rolling it out further - when the “challenge” would have been resolved without it.
More pressure on leaders
There is a similar issue with school improvement: in a hyper-sensitive accountability system in which any sign of trouble is in need of attention, you risk over-emphasising (and over-resourcing on) blips, and potentially doing more damage than good - making innovation less appealing, damaging morale, over-emphasising small details and depleting funds for genuine problems. Ultimately, we also make the job of headteacher vastly more stressful and less attractive.
And lastly, in an early intervention model, you risk describing by design any significant issues that develop as a missed opportunity for early intervention. That puts an enormous amount of pressure on the school system to be perfect: even with all the set-up costs listed above being met, no system is going to be flawless. And likewise, many challenges don’t have easy fixes that simply involve getting in early. We risk schools being set up to fail.
None of this is to say that early intervention is a bad idea. On the contrary, it should be a vital and established part of the system (and in many places it already is). However, it requires a nuanced, well-resourced and context-driven implementation that is alive to the many risks.
Schools will hope Labour understands that.
Jon Severs is editor at Tes
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