Helen Donohoe, Chief Executive at PACEY
It is fair to say that barely hours after the result of this years’ general election were finalised, the new Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP was arriving at the Department for Education in Westminster and meeting and greeting her new colleagues within the building as well as other stakeholders from across the education sector.
It was an impressive start, and the early messages were clear: a reset of the relationship between government, the department and us that work in or represent the education workforce; a focus on collaboration; cross-department working with the Department for Education leading on opportunity; and the commitment to place early years education at the heart of decision making and policy making going forward.
There is a tangible level of renewed energy amongst colleagues in government and a refreshing optimism about what can be achieved.
That positivity is wonderful to see, but it will need to sit alongside resilience and determination because the challenges are substantial.
Last week, the latest data from Ofsted indicated that as of March 2024 the number of providers registered with Ofsted had fallen by 1,440 (2 per cent) since March 2023. That is largely because the number of childminders registered with Ofsted had decreased by 1,340 (5 per cent) to 26,500 providers.
It is worth noting that at their most recent inspection, 97 per cent of childcare providers were judged good or outstanding, an increase of 1 percentage point since last year. So, the quality of your provision remains incredibly high, but our numbers are reducing. Indeed, at the current rate of decline only 1000 childminders left by 2035 – from a high of nearly 58,000 in 2010.
This is within the context of the Department for Education’s estimate that 40,000 additional staff will be needed in the next year to deliver the childcare expansion scheme and the National Audit Office’s estimate that the workforce will need to increase by 12 per cent.
What is also of huge concern is the evidence that the children who most need high quality early education and childcare are not able to access it.
Again, according to the very latest department for education data: The number of disadvantaged two-year-olds that are registered for the 15-hour entitlement has dropped by 7 per cent since last year and is its lowest recorded level.
While this could be partly attributed to a fall in the birth rate, the low take-up is also due to the freezing of the income threshold, as well as changes to the benefit system which means fewer low-income families are eligible for places for disadvantaged two-year-olds.
This means that the number of two-year-olds registered for the 15 hours in 2023 was 115,900 compared to 157,000 in 2015.
Further, analysis published by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) showed that very few poorer households would be able to access the full 30 ‘free hours’ for under five-year-olds and that 44 per cent of children in this age range live in local authorities considered ‘childcare deserts’ where there is only one early education place available for every three children.
We know that disadvantage amongst children has widened, and that child poverty has increased. If the new government is to address that, then giving them access to high quality and appropriate education will be vital.
In the Labour manifesto is a commitment to convert over 3,000 unused classrooms into school-based nurseries to create an extra 100,000 places, focussed on areas with insufficient provision. That is one way to boost the numbers. I am concerned though that high-quality early education requires age-appropriate, child-centred pedagogy, delivered in spaces suitable to the needs of a diversity of children. That space may be a large group setting, it may be within a school environment, or, for many, it might be in the home from home, smaller, quieter setting of a childminder.
As we see the details of the new government’s plans on early education and childcare emerge, we look forward to working with them on how we can best deliver a thriving sector that is there, as appropriate, for each unique child.
