On a day when millions of the country’s children are impacted by teachers’ strikes, and a growing number of these children are facing poverty-related barriers to their education, we read today’s budget announcement with interest.
We welcome the Chancellor’s announcement that substantial government investment will be made in childcare, with 30 free hours being extended to one and two-year-olds. Early years provision is a critical piece of the puzzle in tackling educational inequality – the lowest-income children are an average of 11 months behind their wealthier classmates when they start primary school. However, today’s announcement is unlikely to close this gap.
Currently, only 20% of the poorest children are eligible for 30 free hours at age three and four. Today’s announcement does not extend eligibility to those children currently missing out.
As we’ve heard from a range of school leaders, high-quality nursery can support a range of early interventions, including building social, emotional and language capabilities that can be diagnosed as Special Educational Needs later on.
The additional investment comes with a relaxation of ratios – putting further demands on an already understaffed and underpaid Early Years workforce. We must invest in our Early Years workforce, recognising the skill and dedication required, making it an attractive profession, and ensuring that the early years provision children are receiving is high quality.
We were also dismayed to see no additional investment in addressing the root cause of so many of the inequalities we see growing in education: poverty. We, alongside our partners in the Education Anti-Poverty Coalition, called on government to address rising poverty in two basic ways:
An expansion of those eligible for Free School Meals
An uplift to Child Benefit of £20 per week.
Poverty at home is the strongest statistical predictor of how well a child will do in school. Children who are worried, hungry, tired, more frequently ill, and lack resources and adequate clothing, find it harder to learn -- and indeed to even show up to school. We must listen to the teachers and school leaders who have seen the symptoms of poverty rising in the pupils they serve, and we hope the Chancellor and his partners in Government will reconsider their inaction.