Focus on preschools during Covid recovery, UK ministers urged

Ministers are being urged to put early years at the heart of the education recovery programme, with a warning that schools in England will be left to “pick up the pieces” for years to come if preschool children are not prioritised.

The Sutton Trust education charity has called for increased rates of funding for the sector, saying: “The pandemic has reminded us how crucial the early years sector is for the functioning of our daily lives and our children’s futures. But it also laid bare the fragility of a sector which comprises many small and poorly funded private and voluntary providers, particularly those in less well-off areas.”

According to Labour, 2,000 childcare providers have closed since the start of the year alone.

In a YouGov poll commissioned by the Sutton Trust, one in five (20%) of the 570 parents of two- to four-year-olds who took part said they felt the pandemic had had a negative impact on their child’s physical development.

A quarter said the same of their child’s language development, and just over half (52%) said their child’s social and emotional development had been negatively affected, and two-thirds (69%) felt that not being able to play with other children had had an adverse effect on their child.

The government is expected shortly to announce its long-term plans for education recovery and funding post-pandemic. It has already pledged £1.7bn for short-term catchup, including a £350m national tutoring programme providing one-to-one and small group tutoring for those most severely affected by the disruption to education.

Experts have said the government will need to spend in the region of £13.5bn to plug the gaps in pupils’ learning over a sustained period. Sir Peter Lampl, the founder and chair of the Sutton Trust, said the government’s recovery plan should be ambitious, long-term and focused on disadvantaged families.

“But as today’s polling shows, we cannot forget the youngest children. It is more important than ever that there is greater access to high-quality early education for younger children from poorer homes whose development is at risk of suffering the most,” he said.

Meanwhile, research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that 30% of the £4.3bn the government has committed to spend on education in England in response to the pandemic in 2020-22 is not new but comes from underspending or existing budgets.

Dr Luke Sibieta, an IFS research fellow and author of the briefing note, said: “Meeting the prime minister’s pledge to ensure ‘no child will be left behind’ as a result of the pandemic is likely to require spending in the tens of billions.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government had invested £18m to support language development in the early years. “We know the early years are the most crucial point of a child’s development, which is why we have prioritised them throughout the pandemic by keeping nurseries open,” they said.