According to this article ‘The government has pledged to plough £50m into bolstering early years provision in disadvantaged areas of the country, as part of an action plan intended to improve social mobility.’ Sadly this strategy is deeply flawed. The sum involved is not small, but spread across the nation as a whole it will not go very far. However the real flaw in the plan is that the money will only be available to improving access to school nurseries, even though their reach into disadvantaged communities is nowhere near as effective as that provided by the voluntary sector early years provision. Not only will this strategy deny additional access to the best quality pre schools and nurseries run by charities, but as a consequence the money will not go as far as it would if the voluntary and community sector was able to benefit from it.

The logic applied is that by focusing on state provision, it will ensure that the staff involved in the work with these hard to reach children and their families will be well qualified. Once again this is a matter which misunderstands the way in which early years education works on the ground. In the first place the ability to help young children to catch up with their socially advantaged friends and neighbours is not something that is limited to workers with qualifications. Throughout our nation and across many industries there are numerous examples of how skills and ability do not always match the way in which exams are set. However more importantly there are many charities working in disadvantaged communities, providing first class early years education who are not part of the state system. Many of these attract highly qualified and highly gifted staff and would do even better if they could pay their staff the same levels of pay that Schools offer. The barrier to this is the funding gap between the state and voluntary sector provision. Whilst £50m couldn’t change the whole of the sector, it could be used in a manner that both helps to sustain some of the best voluntary sectors organisations and also dramatically improves the reach when compared to the provision available through schools.

As Purnima Tanuku chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association explained “Private, voluntary and independent (PVI) nurseries care for 77 per cent of pre-school children in England and excellent work goes on there, developing children’s literacy and numeracy skills through play and offering flexibility for working parents. Many have graduate teachers. But they are being overlooked, while nursery schools are encouraged to create additional provision. This sends out an unpleasant and unsupportive message to the PVI nursery sector.”

Beyond the best way of improving the education for disadvantaged children, we need the Department for Education to recruit Early Years specialists who have a background in voluntary sector provision. That will help ensure that such proposals are thought through in the future.