Every child deserves a fair start in education. So it’s worrying to see that the disadvantage gap is widening by the end of early years, according to new statistics from the Department for Education.
That makes it even more urgent for school leaders applying to set up school-based nurseries to consider one of the key sections they will be scored on.
Schools must “clearly evidence that they are focussed on supporting children from disadvantaged families” in the application form. More widely, everyone leading provision in the early years needs to consider this.
Disadvantage in early years
It’s useful to begin by considering what we might mean by disadvantage. Recent research by Edward Melhuish and Julian Gardiner highlights the importance of considering two dimensions of the term.
The first is socioeconomic, and it’s notable that the government estimates that 4.3 million children (or 30 per cent of all children in the UK) are living in relative low-income households.
The second is home disadvantage; growing up in a household where there aren’t many books or much to play with, where parenting is overly permissive or low in emotional warmth, for example.
Both types affect children negatively. Those children growing up with both socioeconomic and home disadvantage are affected especially badly in terms of their language, social and emotional development, and self-regulation.
Having spoken with a wide range of early years practitioners recently, this description feels relevant to the many young children who are struggling to settle in, play and learn.
The researchers suggest that we need to find out more about children’s home experiences before they start with us. In turn, schools could build stronger links with local family hubs and other early help services.
Early education alone isn’t enough to support the many families who have been hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis and Covid-19 lockdowns.
Supporting disadvantage in EYFS
There are two further priorities for any school leader seeking to focus more on supporting children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Firstly, this group of children is especially sensitive to quality. When quality is higher, it disproportionately benefits their development and their later outcomes in school. Research evidence suggests that it’s the all-round quality of the provision that matters the most.
This particularly includes the level of care, the quality of interactions, and ensuring appropriate routines, sensitive and clear management of behaviour, and supervision.
It’s a mistake to put all the emphasis on the specifically educational aspects of the provision. These matter greatly, but it’s vital to ensure that the foundations of quality are in place first.
Secondly, it’s important to prioritise. An explicit emphasis on supporting early communication, physical development, early understanding of number and pattern, and children’s skills in cognitive and emotional self-regulation is important.
The Education Endowment Foundation’s new Early Years Hub helpfully summarises the key research evidence and how to put it into action. Even in early years, the curriculum can get overcrowded. Why not do fewer things better?
Beyond this focus on high-quality early education and care, it’s clear that we need a far greater emphasis on tackling child poverty.
Sir Michael Marmot put it well when he commented that the “stress associated with poverty will damage children’s brains, it will damage child development”.
Ultimately, there’s only so much that schools and early years settings can do.
Julian Grenier CBE is the co-author of Putting the EYFS Curriculum into Practice
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