Early Years Quality Improvement Programme Slide 1

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Early Years Quality Improvement
December 2007
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Contents
Slide Number

• Introduction and background 214
• Early Years Quality Improvement Programme 15
• Communicating quality 1619
• Performance Management driving quality through
  the system 2027
• Local authorities 2324
• Settings 2527
• Supporting the workforce 2829
• Conclusion 30
• Glossary and References 3132

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Early YearsImproving quality the core priority

• The Childrens Plan published in December 2007
  sets out a vision for making this country the
  best place in the world for children and young
  people to grow up
• Improving the quality of early years provision is
  at the heart of that vision
• Achieving world-class standards and closing the
  gaps between the lowest achieving and most
  disadvantaged children and the rest will require
  system reform so that all providers are
  consistently achieving at the level of the best
• The Early Years Quality Improvement Programme
  sets out a framework for taking forward the
  vision for improvement set out in the Childrens
  Plan

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The importance of quality

• Early learning, along with the home learning
  environment, has a significant impact on
  childrens social, emotional and cognitive
  development, and contributes to better outcomes
  at school
• However, early learning provision must be of high
  quality evidence (EPPE) shows that poor quality
  early learning adds no value in the long term
• High quality early learning has a number of
  essential characteristics but the quality of
  the workforce is one of the most important
• Developing high quality early learning is also
  the best way to ensure that parents are fully
  involved in their childrens learning

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The benefits why invest in quality?
IF HIGH QUALITY
Positive and significant contribution to
attainment in reading/maths
46 months ahead in pre-reading
2YO 34YO 5YO
EARLY YEARS
PRIMARY SCHOOL
IF HIGH QUALITY better cognitive outcomes esp.
pre-language less easily distracted/more task
oriented
Higher reading/maths scores at 5 and 10 YO
associated with better self-regulation
(independence, concentration) when starting school
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Quality also drives virtuous circles
Two potentially virtuous circles
CHILDRENS OUTCOMES IMPROVE
CHILDREN
income
learning and development
EARLY LEARNING AND CARE
income
WORK
access to childcare
translating best of practice to the home
PARENTS OUTCOMES IMPROVE
PARENTS
but only if provision is high-quality
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Quality in the market

• The early years sector is a mixed market, with a
  large proportion of provision delivered by
  Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI)
  providers (80)
• The Government has regulated to set core
  standards for quality in early learning,
  development and care from birth to five through
  the EYFS
• But providers need to use these core standards as
  the basis for continuous quality improvement,
  which should be a part of day-to-day practice
• Both supply-side (funding, support) and
  demand-side incentives (fees from parents) for
  providers to improve quality need to be used
  effectively to deliver sustainable quality
  improvement alongside better access and
  involvement for parents

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Delivering quality in partnership
Sharing best practice at LA level National QI
Network
Local authority
FACILITATE SHARING BEST PRACTICE
SUPPORT CHALLENGE
Research evidence Tools (e.g.
ECERS) EYFS as starting point
Hardest to reach
Easiest to reach
Parents/children
Support for access
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Sustainable quality improvement
Communications and strategic leadership

Local authorities
Central Government

• Demonstrable impact on outcomes
• Consistent basis for quality improvement and
  shared language for describing it
• Sharing best practice

Sustainable core of public funding GLF, SSEYCG
Maintained nurseries and schools
SSCCs
PVI
CULTURE BETTER WAYS OF WORKING
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Quality improvement understanding the issues
A review of the early years sector carried out in
summer 2007 suggested that

• parents do not have a strong enough voice in the
  market or value quality as an important part of
  choosing early learning for their child
• the quality of early learning is not a strong
  enough priority for local authorities, and many
  authorities do not have a strong vision or
  strategy for quality improvement
• the range of support available to providers to
  help improve the quality of the workforce is not
  brought together in a coherent enough way and its
  quality is variable
• providers do not feel they have sufficient
  economic incentives to improve the quality of the
  workforce, and PVI providers feel there is not a
  level playing field in support available

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Data on quality
LEVEL 3
GRADUATES
In 2007 Nursery Schools 32 Primary Schools
3745
FDC/sessional 4 Childminders 3
WORKFORCE

• At June 2008 over 3,000 Early Years Professionals
  1,900 with the Status and over 1,500 in
  training
• Aim for EYP in every full day care setting by
  2015, with 2 in disadvantaged areas

Ofsted POSITIVES
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

• Ofsted 200508 inspections Quality of childcare
  and early education has risen year-on-year
• 97 of settings satisfactory or better at
  promoting outcomes for children (54 are good or
  outstanding)
• Settings offering outstanding or good early
  education up from 54 2005-06 to 70 2007-2008

• Too many settings still only satisfactory (33
  Ofsted 2007-2008)
• Although 93 of settings were offering at least
  adequate quality of provision (mean total score
  of 3 out of 7 on ITERS) only 23 offered at
  least good quality (5 score) NNI study, 2007
• Although all sectors have improved language and
  reasoning provision, there has been little
  improvement in literacy and maths MCS study,
  200207

PRACTICE
POSITIVES
AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

• FSP scores no discernible narrowing of gap with
  some groups of children still falling behind by
  age 5 (e.g. Pakistani/Bangladeshi children,
  children from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller
  communities)
• Parents not sufficiently well-engaged as partners
  in the learning process

• FSP scores 1 percentage point rise in 2007
  (moderation expected to have fully bedded down by
  2008)
• 2010 target (PSA10/11) further 4 percentage
  points increase in children achieving 78 points
  and 3 narrowing of gap from 2008 baseline

OUTCOMES
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Action to secure high quality

• Early Years Foundation Stage  setting
  the national standards for learning development
  and care from birth to five
• Ofsted registration and inspection ensuring
  minimum standards of safety and quality are met
  and providing a basis for constructing strategies
  for improvement
• Early Years National Strategies supporting LAs
  to improve childrens outcomes, narrow gaps and
  engage parents as partners in childrens
  learning and providing CPD to professionals
  CLLD, ECAT, SEAD, EAL, Boys, IDP
• Workforce development 305m (200811) Graduate
  Leader Fund as a sustainable direct investment to
  incentivise graduate training, recruitment and
  retention Level 3 as the standard for group
  care, with Sure Start, Early Years and Childcare
  Grant to support training
• National Quality Improvement Network sharing
  best practice between local authorities across
  the country in systems for improving quality in
  settings

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The ambition where we need to be

• Continuous quality improvement embedded in all
  settings, based on key elements of quality
  underpinned by the right culture
• Settings working together, facilitated by local
  authorities, to share best practice, and working
  closely with schools and partners in health and
  employment to focus on the needs of children and
  families
• Leaders and managers who set a vision and lead a
  learning culture in settings, with sustainable
  graduate leadership across the sector all full
  daycare settings to be led by a graduate by 2015,
  with two graduates in deprived communities
• A highly qualified early years workforce an
  ambition for all staff in group care to have a
  minimum Level 3 qualification, and all
  childminders to achieve a minimum Level 2
  qualification over time
• A universal recognition of the importance of high
  quality early education, a consistent conception
  of what high quality looks like, and a shared
  language for describing it, so that parents can
  drive quality improvement through exercising
  choice, and settings can set the highest
  standards

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Investing in higher quality the gains

• Investing in people is the right basis for
  improving quality CPD and qualifications (Level
  3, graduate)
• Potential gains outweigh the potential risks
• Key gains are improved reach (more parents using
  a providers or childminders services) and
  better outcomes for children (including by
  working better with parents)
• As quality improves, the cost of retaining staff
  with higher skills becomes less than the cost of
  losing them, and the cost of improving skills is
  outweighed by the benefits because the sector
  becomes an even better place to work
• Culture consistently learning, stimulating,
  challenging
• Opportunities for innovation and new practice
• Day-by-day improvements for children

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Rising to the quality challenge
The Early Years Quality Improvement Programme
responds to this challenge through three key
themes

• Communicating quality
• Performance Management - driving quality
  improvement through the system
• Supporting the workforce rise to the quality
  challenge

Underpinning this, we need to recognise that
turning the curve on quality is a shared
challenge for all providers that depends on
sharing best practice
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Early Years Quality Improvement Programme
Communicating quality Developing a universal
understanding of the characteristics of high
quality early years provision and why it is
important, that is shared by everyone in the
system
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Communicating quality

• Current perceptions of what high quality looks
  like are uneven among both providers and parents
  despite the clear picture that research has
  painted
• For providers, quality is often not seen as
  synonymous with qualifications skills and
  experience are considered more important
• For parents, word of mouth is the main driver in
  choosing an early learning setting, and personal
  recommendation, trust and convenience tend to be
  more important than objective measures of quality
  although some parents will check Ofsted reports
• There are perceived (but not real) disconnects
  between
• the aims of Government regulation (the EYFS and
  PSA targets) and what high quality, play-based
  early learning looks like
• the Governments aim to help parents into work
  and the key importance of the home learning
  environment for young children
• raising access to childcare whilst improving
  quality putting pressure on sustainability in
  the PVI sector

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Conception of high quality common threads

• Commitment to improving outcomes for children,
  not just keeping them safe and happy and ways
  of demonstrating that this happens, including
  through an 'early learning vision' (e.g. 'giving
  children more')
• Skills and experience that not only meet minimum
  standards but are being well used are the staff
  happy and motivated?
• Recognition that early learning that conforms
  with the high standards set out in research (e.g.
  'sustained shared thinking') works
• Recognition both that the home learning
  environment can be influenced by early learning
  provision, and that young children gain important
  social skills from early learning environments
  that they may not get at home

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What quality looks like Settings what are the
key elements of high quality provision?
Clear educational goals
Graduate leading practice, setting vision,
leading learning culture
Meeting every individual childs needs
Level 3 as standard for group care basis for
progression to higher levels
Sustained shared thinking
Warm responsive relationships between
adults/children
Workforce
Practice
CPD opportunities for staff to gain higher
qualifications improve skills
Parents supported in involvement in childrens
learning
Content Environment
Safe stimulating physical environment
EYFS staff children ratios
EYFS challenging play-based content
Back/Themes
Next/Conclusion
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Early Years Quality Improvement Programme

• Performance Management driving quality
  improvement through the system
• Coherent local authority level QI processes
  delivered through Early Years Consultants with
  intervention in inverse proportion to success
• Quality improvement processes at setting level
  using tools to continually review and improve
  practice, driven by the Ofsted self-evaluation
  form
• Early Years National Strategies challenging and
  supporting local authorities through training

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Performance Management driving quality
improvement through the system
All those involved in the delivery of early years
provision are focused on quality improvement,
underpinned by a consistent understanding of
quality

• Early Years National Strategies helping LAs to
  embed early years quality improvement in their
  plans for childrens services, and training and
  supporting Early Years Consultants
• Local authorities implementing systematic QI
  processes through EYCs based on intervention in
  inverse proportion to success and sharing best
  practice
• Settings continuous quality improvement
  processes, drawing on the full range of tools
  available to support QI and driven by the Ofsted
  self-evaluation form

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Driving quality through the systemEarly Years
National Strategies support and training

• Steering quality improvement activity in
  partnership with local authorities, challenging
  where robust QI strategies have not been
  developed and checking that
• support for QI is coherent and simple for
  providers to understand
• inputs (workforce training) have been linked to
  outputs (measures of childrens outcomes,
  including the FSP)
• local authorities are sharing best practice
  both across the local market and with other LAs
• Helping to strengthen the current early years
  advisory workforce in local authorities by
  providing training in quality improvement tools
  and processes in line with the aim of
  establishing the role of Early Years Consultants
  as being parallel to that of PNS Primary
  Consultants
• Delivering leadership training for managers in
  settings, focused on the change management and
  leadership skills required to deliver a
  continuously improving service in a mixed market

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Driving quality through the systemLocal
authority support and challenge
The Childcare Act 2006 formalised local
authorities market management (sufficiency and
access) role in relation to the early years sector

• Local authorities need to
• develop an integrated strategy for improving
  childrens outcomes and reducing inequalities
  between them, which binds together quality
  improvement, raising access and involving parents
  in delivering the S1 outcomes duty
• allocate funding and support in a way that best
  incentivises quality improvement across the local
  market, and which is perceived as coherent by
  providers in delivering the S6 sufficiency duty
  and S13 training duty
• raise awareness among parents of the importance
  of quality and what high quality looks like in
  delivering the S12 information duty
• This requires a vision and processes for quality
  improvement which are securely embedded within
  the local authoritys wider childrens services
  plan, and which should
• embrace the whole market PVI, maintained, SSCCs
  and schools with ownership across providers and
  a commitment to sharing best practice
• ideally be based on an 'audit and improvement'
  cycle taking into account Ofsted judgements with
  teams of Early Years Consultants providing
  support to providers
• set clear expectations for sustainable high
  quality and continuous quality improvement

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Driving quality through the system Local
authority support and challenge
Key EYC Early Years Consultants PC Primary
Consultant SIP School Improvement Partner PVI
Private, Voluntary and Independent SSCC Sure
Start Childrens Centre
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Driving quality through the system Settings
continuous quality improvement

• Meeting the requirements of the EYFS
• Using the Ofsted self-evaluation form as the
  basis for continuous quality improvement
• Focusing on both characteristics of effective
  pedagogy from birth to five and cultural
  characteristics of setting (e.g. a learning
  culture)
• Drawing on the full range of QI tools available
  as required, steered by local authority QI
  processes including
• Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS
  E and A)
• Key Elements of Effective Practice (PNS)
• Babies Effective Early Learning (BEEL)
• Leuven scale of childrens well-being and
  involvement

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Driving quality through the system Settings
characteristics of effective practice, from birth
to five

• Adult/child interactions sustained shared
  thinking and open-ended questioning to help
  extend childrens learning
• Equal balance between adult-led and
  child-initiated activities in which formative
  feedback is provided to children
• Knowledge and understanding of the curriculum and
  how young children learn
• Use of observational assessment to understand
  each childs development and inform their next
  learning steps
• Skilled staff with qualifications and training
• Encouraging parental involvement in childrens
  learning, especially by encouraging shared
  educational aims with parents, providing regular
  reporting to parents and discussing childrens
  progress
• Clear policy for managing discipline and
  behaviour
• Cognitive/social development seen as
  complementary
• Play in which the baby or child takes the lead
  and makes choices imaginative and creative
  activity

Sources Effective Provision of Pre-School
Education (2007) 'Birth to Three Matters'
Guidance, Sure Start
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Driving quality through the system Cultural
characteristics of a high quality setting

• Leadership capable of inspiring and managing
  change
• 'Whole setting' approach with clear educational
  vision
• Shared ownership of vision and quality
  improvement processes by leaders/staff
• High aspirations for every child a strong
  commitment to making a difference to childrens
  (and parents) lives and recognition of how
  quality improvement can help achieve this
• Reflective practice, both individually and
  together amongst staff
• CPD-enabling time and space for discussion and
  development
• Environments designed to facilitate high quality
  learning and development

Source Leadership in EY Settings (2007)
supported by DCSF case studies
Back/Themes
Next/Conclusion
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Early Years Quality Improvement Programme
Supporting the workforce to rise to the quality
challenge Providing sustainable funding to
improve the quality of the workforce, focusing on

• Graduate recruitment/retention
• CPD for all staff
• Coherence, shared purpose and mutual support of
  the schools and early years workforces
• Leadership skills

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Supporting the workforce
The Government is investing in the quality of
early learning through the SureStart, Early Years
and Childcare Grant. Namely

• the Graduate Leader Fund, sustained through to
  2015 and positively targeted on the PVI sector,
  to incentivise the employment of graduates by
  contributing to salary costs for newly employed
  graduates providing further CPD for graduates to
  support retention and providing graduate
  training for existing staff in settings
• an expanded programme of CPD delivered by EYNS
  focused on supporting particular aspects of
  childrens learning and development which are key
  to their later achievement, such as the
  development of speaking and listening skills, as
  well as on particular approaches to gap narrowing
• funding for LAs to flex the boundaries between
  the schools and EY workforces to share knowledge
  and practice by building on the Early Years
  Professional (EYP) practice-sharing networks
  being established by the CWDC. Support for
  networking and the exchange of leadership
  practice, including through 'buddying'
  arrangements and other joint work

Back/Themes
Next/Conclusion
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Conclusion
The Childrens Plan has positioned quality
improvement as an imperative for the early years
sector, and a shared challenge for local
authorities and all providers in the
market Developing a common conception of high
quality and language to describe it, and sharing
best practice, are vital
The Early Years Quality Improvement Programme
underpins the next stage of development of the
sector by providing a coherent framework of
policy for quality improvement and funding to
support it through

• Communicating quality a common perception of
  quality and its importance that is shared by
  everyone in the system
• Performance Management driving quality
  improvement through the system the roles of
  EYNS, LAs and settings, which are reinforcing
• Supporting the workforce to rise to the quality
  challenge sustainable funding for quality
  improvement, focusing on graduates, CPD, exchange
  of practice with schools, and leadership

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Glossary

• Boys Confident, capable creative supporting
  boys achievements programme
• CLLD Communication, language and literacy
  development programme
• CPD Continuous professional development
• CWDC Childrens Workforce Development Council
• EAL English as an additional language
• EPPE The Effective Provision of Pre-School
  Education (EPPE) Project
• ECAT Every Child a Talker programme
• EYC Early Years Consultant
• EYFS Early Years Foundation Stage
• EYNS Early Years National Strategies
• EYP Early Years Professional
• FSP Foundation Stage Profile
• IDP Inclusion Development Programme
• ITERS Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scales
• LA Local authority
• MCS Millennium Cohort Study
• NNI Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative
• Ofsted Office for Standards in Education,
  Children's Services and Skills 
• PNS Primary National Strategies

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References

• The Childcare Act 2006
• The Act may be viewed in full online at
  www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/pdf/ukpga_20060021_e
  n.pdf
• Below are brief outlines of sections 1, 6, 12
  13
• Part 1, Section 1 General duties of English local
  authorities in relation to the well-being of
  young children
• An English local authority must
• (a) improve the well-being of young children in
  their area, and
• (b) reduce inequalities between young children
  in their area in relation to
• physical and mental health and emotional
  well-being
• protection from harm and neglect
• education, training and recreation

Part 1, Section 6 Duty to secure sufficient
childcare for working parents An English local
authority must secure, so far as is reasonably
practicable, that the provision of childcare
(whether or not by them) is sufficient to meet
the requirements of parents in their area who
require childcare in order to enable them (a)
to take up, or remain in, work, or (b) to
undertake education or training which could
reasonably be expected to assist them to obtain
work...
Part 1, Section 12 Duty to provide information,
advice and assistance An English local authority
must establish and maintain a service providing
information, advice and assistance in accordance
with this section. The service must provide to
parents or prospective parents information which
is of a prescribed description and relates to any
of the following (a) the provision of childcare
in the area of the local authority (b) any
other services or facilities, or any
publications, which may be of benefit to parents
or prospective parents in their area (c) any
other services or facilities, or any
publications, which may be of benefit to children
or young persons in their area
Part 1, Section 13 Duty to provide information,
advice and training to childcare providers An
English local authority must, in accordance with
regulations, secure the provision of information,
advice and training to persons providing
childcare in their area and other persons
specified in the Act.
The Childrens Plan Department for Children,
Schools and Families The Childrens Plan,
Building brighter futures. Published December
2007.Cm7280.
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