A baby born in the midst of the Covid pandemic is now three years old. Just think of those crucial first years of a child’s life: meeting family, forming attachments, learning to walk and to talk, making your first friends. During successive lockdowns, many of these children missed these crucial experiences. It’s no wonder that headteachers have spoken of children arriving at school who are still wearing nappies, whose communication abilities are limited, or who are still unable to use a knife and fork. Politicians say they want to give every child the best start, but when you scratch beneath this rhetoric, it quickly becomes clear that the government is failing in this ambition.
Parents are struggling to pay eye-watering childcare costs, while many nurseries are going out of business at alarming rates. New figures show that fewer two-year-old children are reaching expected standards of development this year, compared with last. The gap in learning between children from better- and worse-off households is growing at age five and at each stage of education. And that gap is even greater for children with special educational needs, who are arriving at school with their learning and development almost a year behind their friends.
Most schools do all they can to help every child succeed. But very often the die has already been cast. Evidence shows that despite the best efforts of teachers, gaps in learning and development widen as children grow older, becoming embedded and therefore more difficult to overcome. Prevention is better than cure, which is why we need to intervene early to prevent educational gaps from developing before they can grow. This will require a clear plan from the government. Yet its support has so far been lacking.
On paper, the expansion of childcare promised in the March 2023 budget sounds appealing. Extending funded childcare to children from nine months old in working households is surely part of the answer. But the announcement didn’t provide a properly worked-out plan. Many nursery providers are already saying they will not offer these new entitlements, meaning families will continue to struggle to get the childcare they need. The government rushed out an announcement in an attempt to score political points. It is the equivalent of saying: “We’ll treat 100 more patients – we just have to build the hospital first.”
As things stand, the chancellor’s promise to parents is, to quote providers, “undeliverable”. There is no plan to recruit the staff needed to care for more children. There are no proposals for how these new nursery places will be delivered, or how to solve the problem of childcare deserts that exist across the country. These are big challenges, and the government has shown little intention of turning its promises into reality. Solving Britain’s childcare crisis would help give every child the best start, and give parents – especially mums – the freedom to work and earn as they choose.
Transformation will not be easy. Britain has a broken economy, an exhausted workforce and rising child poverty. Local government and public services have been hollowed out. But we cannot afford to fail. There is extensive research on the importance of early years education and care, on the impact that a well-supported, well-recognised workforce has on children’s learning, and on the effect that having available and accessible wider services – such as social care and family support – can have on children’s outcomes.
Bringing about such change is a collective effort. To develop a plan for a new, modern childcare system, Labour’s early years review, which I am chairing, will aim to provide answers that inform the creation of a new modern childcare system that puts quality, availability and affordability at the heart of education and care in the early years. We are seeking input from people using, and working in, early years. We will also need to look across the world and learn from established and developing childcare systems.
Transformation is an overused word in public policy. But it is not hyperbole to use it here. It will take transformational change, along with a relentless focus on driving high and rising standards for every child, to achieve Labour’s ambition for half a million more children to meet the early learning goals by 2030. We want a system that is built to last, that improves life chances and gives every child the start they deserve.
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Sir David Bell is the vice-chancellor of Sunderland University, a former primary schoolteacher who later became chief inspector of Ofsted, and permanent secretary of the Department for Education between 2006 and 2012.
