Study of early education and development : baseline survey of families. Research report, July 2015
Year: 2015
Type: other
Abstract: Background to the evaluationResearch has shown that good quality early years education can have a positive effect on the educational, cognitive, behavioural and social outcomes of children, both in the short and long term.Successive policies have introduced universal provision, increased the number of children entitled to funded early years education, increased the number of hours of funded entitlement and progressively reduced the age at which children become entitled to funded early years provision.At present, all three-and four-year-olds in England are entitled to funded early education, for 570 hours per year (commonly taken as 15 hours per week, for 38 weeks of the year).More recently the Government has expanded this entitlement to benefit two-year-old children living in the most disadvantaged households in England.From September 2013, two-year-old children living in the 20% lower income households became eligible for 15 hours of funded early education per week.This was extended in September 2014, so that two-year-old children in the 40% lower income households in England became eligible for 15 hours of funded provision.The Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) is a major study that will help the Department for Education (DfE) provide evidence on the effectiveness of early years education and short-and longer-term benefits from this investment.It is being undertaken by NatCen Social Research, the University of Oxford, 4Children and Frontier Economics, and it follows thousands of children across England from the age of two, through to their early years at school.This report provides descriptive findings from the first wave of the longitudinal survey of parents.Over 5,600 families (six cohorts of children) took part in the baseline survey over the period from October 2013 to November 2014.Most children in the study were two years old at the time of the baseline interview.The aim of this report is to set the scene for the impact reports which will be available later in the evaluation.The aims of this report are to:• Describe the profile of families who are taking part in the longitudinal survey and how families' background characteristics vary by their level of disadvantage.• Map families' childcare use from birth to two and provide estimates of take-up of funded places for two-year-olds from lower income families.• Explore the extent to which the home learning environment and child outcome measures vary with families' childcare use and their level of disadvantage.
Author: Svetlana Speight
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1562455854