Labour Party – National Policy Forum 2025 consultation

Break Down Barriers to Opportunity, questions 1 to 5

Response by the New Visions for Education Group

Question 1. What are the main challenges in improving school readiness and meeting the key Plan for Change milestone of 75 per cent of five-year-olds in England being ready to learn when they start school?

The Department for Education must develop sub-milestones for groups of children who fail to reach a good level of development when starting school, namely children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and those from low-income families. Unless this is done, there is a risk that schools will concentrate on supporting children who are closest to achieving school readiness rather than children who require more intensive support.

A more equitable measure of school readiness and children’s learning is required in the longer term. The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile does not assess children’s development. Especially in the early years, children’s development progresses at different rates and is determined by many factors beyond teaching and care received in Reception class including for example birth-month and peer group composition.

Question 2. How can Labour give children the best possible start in life and break the unfair link between a young person’s background and their future success?

A policy which offers children publicly funded time in early education based on parental employment or parental income is not fair. Access to provision should be based on the child’s needs and potential to benefit from the specialist developmental support early education and care settings can provide. Equity in provision cannot be achieved without offering this support.

In England, free education for disadvantaged two-year olds is an example of such a targeted service, but it has failed to reach all those most in need. Targeted extra support needs to be in addition to, not instead of, a strong universal offer.

The European Commission has made clear its position on the inadvisability of targeting. They state that the most successful strategies in addressing child poverty have proved to be those underpinned by policies improving the wellbeing of all children, whilst giving careful consideration to children in particularly vulnerable situations.

Question 3. How can we close the opportunity gap and help all children – including those from a disadvantaged background and children with special educational needs and disabilities – to achieve and thrive in school?

Truly equitable access to early years provision cannot be achieved unless the principle of proportionate universalism is applied, that is legislative and policy actions must be universal, but with a scale and intensity that is proportionate to the level of disadvantage. In this context it means that additional support is made available from birth for children at risk of losing out. This risk is growing significantly in England and the other three UK jurisdictions as child poverty levels rise.

The evidence strongly supports the crucial importance of early years in narrowing the attainment gap, but this of course needs to be continued throughout each child’s education. It will be impossible for schools on their own to overcome all the disadvantages that arise from growing up in poverty or with a Special Educational Need or Disability. Young people from these backgrounds will continue for the foreseeable future to be over-represented in the ‘forgotten third’ – those pupils who ‘fail’ at GCSE. Hopefully the situation will improve but in the meantime there is an urgent need to address our curriculum and assessment system and develop a model that recognises what each child has achieved not what 30%+ have failed to achieve. Every year that we delay another 180,000 children ‘fail’ after at least 11 years of education. The Labour Government also needs to tackle those areas which retain an 11+ examination for selection for secondary education on grounds of perceived ability and the consequences for children who are deemed failures at the age of 11.

Question 4. How can we ensure that families have the support they need during the crucial first 1,001 days of a child’s development?

The increasing concentration on delivering Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision to children in working families may affect ECEC service delivery involvement among Family Hubs and the Start for Life programmes. Whereas Family Hubs and Start for Life have been involved in the delivery of early education and childcare services through cluster and partnership models, the 2025 non-statutory guidance outlines core services and minimum expectations which exclude any form of direct ECEC service delivery. This seems to be a great opportunity missed.

In the light of emerging evidence of the long-term impact of the Sure Start initiative the Departments of Health and Social Care and Education would do well to consider the potential of Family Hubs and Start for Life to deliver a more rounded service offer, especially for children under two growing up with disadvantage. This approach resonates with that recently recommended by OECD.

In the eighth and latest report in the OECD Starting Strong series, “Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care” its early years team uses research evidence to address how to improve equity and inclusion in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision. Promising strategies have been adopted by member states to create stronger alignment between service areas with the ultimate aim of enhancing the quality of ECEC, reducing early inequalities and supporting long-lasting, positive effects of ECEC for children.

One of the key messages regarding equity and inclusion is that: Integrated service hubs can promote awareness and use of ECEC, as well as to connect families who already participate in ECEC with a range of other services. Such hubs bring together an array of services to support families with young children and can be tailored to local needs.

This can be achieved partially by reminding local authorities of their duty under s.5C (Children’s centres: advisory boards) Childcare Act 2006 to ensure these advisory bodies work to ensure local Children’s Centres, Family Hubs and Work for Life programmes work together. This needs to be coordinated through the Children’s Trust Board, which again local authorities need to be reminded to exercise their duties. See s.12A (Establishment of CTBs) et seq. Children Act 2004. The DfE needs to update guidance urgently.

Question 5. How can early years services be better integrated to improve families’ security and boost children’s life chances?

The steady marketisation of early childhood education and care through mergers and acquisitions undertaken by large, mostly international, childcare companies, and financed by ever-enlarging debt, has exacerbated the trend towards a low-pay, high-cost model of services. This has become simultaneously unaffordable for parents and less effective for children. Among those thereby disproportionately excluded from high-quality ECEC provision, are children from Black and global majority communities, children with additional learning needs or disabilities and those growing up in large families.

Current marketisation in England may also put downward pressure on staff pay, conditions and in-service training, the largest cost in any business, with negatives consequences for both availability and quality. This needs to stop by the DfE with local authority partners taking a more active role in managing the childcare market.