Improving readiness for school
Colette Flowerdew-Kincaid
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
London mayor plan boosts links between school and early years so children are prepared for learning.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced plans to develop a network of "early years hubs" linking childcare settings and children's centres with primary schools across the capital.
Khan, who pledged to boost childcare provision in his mayoral campaign, sees hubs as a way to enhance links between early education and formal schooling, with the ultimate aim of improving the school readiness of pupils by increasing the uptake of free childcare places, which are low in many areas of the capital (see below).
The idea for hubs - initially developed in 2014 by former government education adviser Charlie Taylor - was discussed at the recent Mayor of London's Education Conference 2017.
Education and early years leaders heard how hubs could help increase access to affordable, high-quality childcare for some of the most disadvantaged communities, at a time of rising funding pressures for schools and early years providers in London.
Research by Public Health England in 2015 found that education and care programmes aimed at under-fives from socially disadvantaged backgrounds have considerable positive effects on cognitive development.
Under his plan, Khan wants teachers to lead local hubs, but exact details on how this will be done have yet to be announced.
At the conference, two areas in London that have already developed hub approaches outlined how they work and the benefits they have seen.
Manor Park, Newham
Julian Grenier, headmaster of Sheringham Primary School, leads the highly successful Manor Park Community Children's Centre, in Newham - all the settings in the hub are graded "good" or "outstanding" by Ofsted.
Manor Park has 80 per cent of disadvantaged two-year-olds claiming their entitlement to 15 hours of free early education. Grenier says this has been achieved through creating a system that is easy to navigate for parents, and constantly striving to improve it.
Manor Park uses profiling to better understand the families they want to reach, and have found that parents looking for more unusual childcare solutions tend to be some of the most disadvantaged in their area of East London.
To help these families, it lists all childcare vacancies online, with its childminder co-ordinator ensuring the list is up to date and provides carers' training and contact details.
Grenier hopes that by making a more flexible childcare system, they will be able to raise free childcare uptake closer to 100 per cent.
It also runs an apprenticeship scheme in which 15- to 16-year-olds from the area come and work with its two-year-olds. This helps to recruit more early years educators as well as joining up services with local schools.
Outcomes by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in Manor Park are ahead of the national average. In summer 2016, 72 per cent of children in Manor Park achieved a good level of development, compared with 69.3 per cent of children nationally.
Grenier says: "It means we have made some progress towards our goal: working with parents to give children in a disadvantaged part of East London the best possible chance to develop as happy, curious and eager learners, pupils, students and citizens in a great city."
Eldon Federation, Enfield
Julie Messer is executive head teacher at the Eldon Federation, one of 10 early years and school hubs in Enfield.
Based in Lower Edmonton, Edmonton Green and Ponders End, 95 per cent of their families are from minority and ethnic groups and 76 per cent have English as an additional language.
In 2004, Eldon had a 60-place nursery, with a separate four-form infant school and five-form junior school that never integrated. Now, it has developed a children's centre hub that takes on nearly 6,000 pre-school-aged children, 3,500 of whom are aged two or under.
The Eldon Children's Centre began as a virtual centre, with a phone and a desk on a stairwell. It gradually expanded into a dedicated building through various funding awards and Messer says that areas need to be inventive when trying to develop their hubs.
The Eldon hub provides a range of services including paternity care; play communication; sessions on baby, toddler and child talk; English as a second language classes; and targeted social care support.
It was also a pilot site for the Department for Education's Terrific Twos (TTs) programme in 2011. Although the TT programme is now managed by Eldon Primary School, outreach workers at the centre still recruit the two-year-olds signposting parents towards the programme, adds Messer.
Last year, 90 per cent of children who took part in the Eldon hub's TTs scheme, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds, reached a good level of development as measured under the EYFS by the time they entered reception.
Messer says that close working between early years settings and schools allows Eldon to more easily track their children throughout their education, providing data they can use to analyse their successes and identify areas to improve.
In numbers
46%
Rate of disadvantaged two-year-olds accessing free childcare in London, compared with an average of 58 per cent across England (1)
700,000
Number of London children who live
in poverty households (2)
66%
Rise in London nursery fees for children aged over two between 2008 and 2016 (3)
Source: 1. Department for Education; 2. Child Poverty Action Group 3. Inner City Pressures