Daycare Trust urges caution over findings of early years failings

Charity the Daycare Trust has urged caution over findings from a Durham University study out yesterday that government early years initiatives are failing to improve children’s educational outcomes.

The trust’s policy and research manager Maxine Hill said: “It is absolutely clear that there are positive cognitive outcomes for children who attend early years education, which increase depending on the length of time in months and years spent in these settings.”

She added that there had been a number of studies, including research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, showing that seven-year-olds who had early years education scored better in tests than their peers who had not.

The Durham study found that the level of development and skills of children starting primary education in England had remained relatively static from 2001 to 2006, a time during which the government had invested heavily in early years.

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