The Guardian has published a look into Sure Start's legacy just a few days before Labour's budget is released to Parliament.
The Guardian article published last week came as no surprise to our Institute For The Early Years Director, Rebecca Oberg.
Rebecca comments,
'The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS): The effect of Sure Start on youth misbehaviour, crime and contacts with children’s social care found that "Children from low-income backgrounds who grew up near a Sure Start centre saw an average improvement of three GCSE grades. Its latest report also reveals that Sure Start areas had 20% fewer children who served a custodial sentence by age 16."
Having trained as a High Scope practitioner back in the 1990s, I was introduced to the Perry Pre-School Project, This longitudinal study confirmed the lifetime effects of high-quality early childhood education, such as intellectual and social development in childhood and future school success, economic performance, and reduced commission of crime in adulthood.
My introduction to that study has been a driver in my want to ensure that, as a society, we ensure that children most in need get access to high quality early years experiences. When our Labour government introduced Sure Start in the late 1990s I was excited, I believed that this was the beginning of something special. I know that in some areas, it wasn't rolled out as effectively as others, and sometimes services were not reaching the families they needed to, but I kept saying to cynics "give it time". When in 2010 Sure Start funding was cut significantly I was deflated. There have been many subsequent reports, by the IFS, The House of Commons, the DFE that showed the positive impact of Sure Start from a variety of perspectives.
With Early Years high on our Government's agenda, let's not start from scratch - we have a network of family hubs, that with more funding can be a starting point for improving the connectivity of services. We have Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs, that with more funding, can deliver CPD for a multi agency workforce. We have a passionate Early Years sector, which includes the PVI sector, who often already have positive, trusting relationships with families that, with more funding, are ideally placed to host or share details of initiatives to support families.
The Perry Preschool Study indicated that the return to the public on its initial investment in such programs is substantial, and here in England, data suggests that 19p out of every pound spent on Sure Start was recouped through savings on criminal justice and social care. The New Economics Foundation boldly state that “High-quality, universal early years education is likely the highest-returning investment a government can make.”
I am once again feeling hopeful!'
To read the full article, click here.
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