Early years pilot improves outcomes for disadvantaged children

The two-year Achieving Early project run by education charity Achievement For All was found to improve the development of disadvantaged children in early years settings.

The initiative supports staff to help meet the needs of the most vulnerable children by improving parental engagement. An early years "coach" is assigned settings to support them to do this.

A total of 62 nurseries and children’s centres across Gloucester, Sheffield, Bournemouth, Coventry and Cornwall took part in the pilot.

The charity tracked the progress of 388 children who were at risk of not making progress, or were developing below expectations for their age.

At the start, only 23 per cent of the children were on target for their age for communication and development. This rose to 73 per cent by the end of the pilot.

The programme also helped to improve the Ofsted inspection outcomes of the 33 settings that were inspected during the two years. The number of settings in the pilot rated as "outstanding" increased by 18 percentage points over the course of two years, and the number of settings rated as "inadequate" fell from five settings to none.

Maureen Hunt, Achieving Early pilot lead at Achievement for All, said the charity wanted to tackle the high number of disadvantaged children starting school below their age-related expectations compared with their less-disadvantaged peers.

“High-quality early years education and parental involvement is crucial in countering the effects of social disadvantage,” Hunt said.
 
“The key aim of the pilot was to ensure a greater proportion of children meet or exceed age related expectations and we are absolutely delighted that it has produced such fantastic results.

“Our report shows that the overall progress of children participating in the pilot was significantly better than for children nationally with special educational needs or disability or eligible for free school meals.”