Incentivising and Achieving Quality Provision in the Early Years Sector

With radical changes to provisions, professionalisation and inspections across early years in the UK, looking at innovative ways to improve the development of children from birth to five is crucial for early years’ providers. This common goal was what brought together over 400 dedicated representatives from across the EY sector at the Business Design Centre – despite disruptions caused by the tube strike!

Naomi Eisenstadt CB, Honorary Research Fellow, Department for Education, University of Oxford chaired the morning session. She introduced Katie Law, Deputy Director, Early Years and Childcare Market, Department for Education who gave the opening keynote presentation outlining the Government vision for early years. In her remarks, she highlighted some key achievements for far, including 67% of early years and childcare providers inspected in 2012/13 were judged good or outstanding – up from 65% in 2008/09, a great achievement for the sector. However, she also stressed that challenges remain. Research shows that only 37% of two-year-olds from the poorest 40% of families access any formal early education, compared to 78% of their richer peers. Additionally, a third of children are still not achieving a good level of development at five. The Department for Education, she stressed, are taking steps aimed at incentivising quality provision. These include introducing the 2-year-old offer and extending this in 2014 and developing a new support for families via Tax Free Childcare.

Suzi Gray, City & Guilds Childcare Adviser then gave a presentation looking at how to build a confident and competent workforce. Lorna Fitzjohn, National Director for Child-minding and Nick Hudson, National Director for Early Education at Ofsted took to the stage; a visual indication that Ofsted is taking the early years sector seriously. They shared evidence from their inspections and summarised the state of the sector at the end of 2013, indicating what needs to be done in 2014 and beyond. Working regionally to achieve closer links to local stakeholders to gain an understanding of current local issues and solutions will be a key focus for Ofsted moving forward. Ofqual’s contribution, delivered by Stephen Anwyll, Head of National Assessment, was a natural follow-on and stressed the importance of validity, reliability, fairness and manageability of change.

The mid-morning presentations began with Sue Robb, Head of Early Years at 4Children. “More great childcare” and “more affordable childcare” were at the heart of her presentation, a sentiment that was supported by Lucy Powell MP, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Children. She focused on Labour’s plans to ease the burden of early years childcare for parents, including extending free childcare from 15 to 25 hours for three and four year olds with parents in work.

Sarah Mitchell, Headteacher at Blagdon Nursery School then gave the practical insight from a school that is doing all the right things to provide an outstanding setting for early years’ provision. She detailed the school’s journey from satisfactory to outstanding and highlighted the value in being part of an Excellence Cluster. She ended the morning session with encouraging words: maintain a strong belief in the impact of high quality early years education.

Lady Diana Whitmore the Chief Executive and Founding Director of Teens and Toddlers joined the conference for the afternoon. She introduced June O’Sullivan MBE, Chief Executive from London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), who was the final speaker of the day. Her presentation was informative and amusing, a difficult balance to strike. She talked on the subjects of sustainability, marketing, compliance, audits and how to approach an often feared Ofsted inspection. Attendees walked away from the day armed with new ideas for improving their early years’ provision, as well as a clearer understanding of how government and industry are driving forward this sector.