Should early years be in schools?

Amid all the worrying ideas about childcare that have been bandied about of late there was one from the Children’s Commissioner to put early years into schools. The argument was that, due to demographic changes – more people living longer and fewer young people being born during the age of austerity – there would be space freed up in schools which could be used to house early years. That would raise the status of early years educators by bringing them in closer contact with teachers. Many early years educators have felt demotivated due to being passed over during Covid and ignored in Covid-related education support.

But is bringing early years and school education closer together the solution? The Early Years Alliance doesn’t think so. Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said the proposal was ‘deeply concerning’ since it seemed to accept the idea that there is no point asking for greater investment in early years and that early years as now constituted is ‘unsustainable’.  He stated: “Those working in our sector have a wealth of very specific knowledge and expertise built up over years of experience supporting early learning and development and the suggestion that this could be so easily replaced is incredibly misguided.”

He recognises, however, that the system is failing now, but says greater investment is the answer. Some might paint this as the argument of someone with a vested interest. It comes, however, after various other – generally – cost-cutting suggestions such as changes in staff/child ratios and ‘French-style’ childminder agencies. It is unclear why whoever leaked the information about the childminder agencies felt the need to add ‘French style’ to the description, but many papers ran with it. The only problem is that, while the UK spends around 0.1% of GDP on early years education, France spends more than 1%. You can have all the French style you like, but without the investment what does that amount to?

The other thing to note is that schools are not exactly in an ideal position at the moment themselves. They are suffering from years of cutbacks, with teaching assistants being axed in many primary schools. It looks like austerity 2.0 is where we are heading. What more damage will be done in the next years? How on Earth can schools cope with early years being added to their remit, unless that comes with lots of additional funding? My sister works in primary education and left her job because her teaching assistant was cut, meaning she was stuck on her own in a class of five year olds, with all the difficulties that entails if, for instance, a child needs to go to the toilet during class. Is that what we want for early years?

Many of the ideas being bandied about of late seem to contradict each other. For instance, the awful bonk for Britain idea to increase the birth rate through tax cuts [presumably now very much on the back burner, if it was ever a contender. Who knows?] goes against the Children’s Commissioner’s sustainability argument.

What we need is a proper discussion of early years, with parents at the centre, instead of a constant drip-feed of ideas from policy think tanks and the like and a recognition of the centrality of childcare for the economy.

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