Several decades of research indicated that early childhood education and care (ECEC) can have a positive effect on children’s educational, cognitive, behavioural and social outcomes, in both the short and long term, particularly if it is of good quality. Research also indicated that the benefits of high quality early education exist from as young as two years of age.
The report addresses:
- the associations between the amount of different types of early childhood education and care (ECEC) that children receive aged 2 to 5 years and child development at the start of school
- to consider how age of starting ECEC may be associated with child development at the start of school
- to investigate the impacts of the home environment on child development at the start of school
The report is interesting because the results paint a mixed picture. While it suggests there are benefits in terms of better verbal ability when using friends and relatives for care from age 2 to the start of school, it also shows poorer socio-emotional outcomes for children using childminders and group-based provision, particularly when they are in this provision for a large number of hours per week.
While some tentative findings suggest some positive outcomes for disadvantaged children when starting provision before age 2 and having moderate amounts per week, it remains to be seen if this will be replicated at age 7.
For cognitive outcomes, there is a small but positive association between the use of informal childcare (with relatives and friends) and verbal ability. But there is no cognitive impact for use of formal early education and care (with childminders and group-based early education and care, such as nurseries and play groups).
For socio-emotional outcomes, the report finds a number of poorer socio-emotional outcomes (such as behaviour and self-regulation) for use of childminders and group-based provision. Further analysis suggests that these poorer outcomes are particularly for those using group provision for a high number of hours per week from 2 to the start of school.
From this, three implications can be drawn:
- The departure from previous findings and the fact that early impacts do not stop influencing children at age 5 demonstrates the need for more detailed analysis and a continuation of SEED into adolescence and adulthood – as happened with previous studies such as EPPSE.
- Given that almost all children now receive some form of early education and care, we need to focus much more attention on understanding and improving the quality of provision.
- Given the impact of a rich parent–child relationship and home learning environment, we should concentrate on ensuring children have as high-quality a learning environment at home as they do in other early education and care settings.
The fact that previous SEED reports found that the effects of early education and care and the home learning environment were largely independent suggests that even children in early education and care still stand to benefit from improvements to their home environment.
Key Findings:
- The findings show some continuity with the earlier SEED reports looking at children’s outcomes
at ages three and four, as well as some divergence from earlier findings, particularly for socioemotional
outcomes. - The results also reveal rather more limited effects associated with ECEC use than in previous SEED reports. In contrast, the effects associated with the home environment are wide-ranging, indicating the substantial influence on development of a range of aspects of the home and parenting.
- A larger amount of informal individual ECEC (with friends and relatives) used between age two and the start of school was associated with higher child verbal ability measured during school year one.
- A larger amount of formal group ECEC (in playgroups, nursery classes etc) was associated with poorer outcomes on a number of child socio-emotional scales measured during school year one.
- There is evidence that the use of some individual ECEC (childminders, friends, relatives) mitigates the negative socio-emotional effects of high formal group ECEC use.
- For the 40% most disadvantaged children, starting to use a minimum of ten hours per week formal ECEC no later than age two, combined with a mean use of over twenty hours per week of formal ECEC between age two and the start of school, increases the chances of achieving expected EYFSP levels in school reception year and improves children’s verbal ability in school year one.
- The characteristics of the home environment, including the home learning environment and the parent / child relationship, have considerable influence on children’s cognitive and socioemotional outcomes measured during school reception year / school year one.
- There was no clear evidence of associations between the quality of ECEC which children had attended between ages two and four and their developmentaloutcomes during reception year / school year one: though these findings may relate to the relatively small sample of settings for the SEED quality study and the similarities in ECEC quality across the sample.