CEY1306

Written evidence submitted by the National Education Union (NEU)

The National Education Union (NEU) brings together the voices of more than 450,000 teachers, lecturers, support staff and leaders working in maintained and independent schools and colleges across the UK, to form the largest education union in Europe.  Our membership includes significant numbers of qualified teachers and other educational workers from across the early years sector. The views of our members – experts in early years education – are presented below and shape the contents of this submission.

The NEU would be happy to provide further information on early years and childcare, including oral evidence from members. Please contact Molly Hall at molly.hall@neu.org.uk for further information or questions.

Summary of response:

The NEU’s response collates survey data and testimony from our members working in early years settings.

The responses to the first three questions on childcare entitlements summarise available research into the affordability and availability of early years provision and the impacts of recent cost increases on low-income families, making recommendations for how better to support families living in or at risk of living in poverty. They rest on the arguments that:

• The early years sector exists to provide high-quality education, not just childcare, and is essential to a more equal and socially just society.
• Rising costs, underfunding and the patchwork nature of provision mean that early years education is becoming unaffordable for many families and pushing many into poverty.
• A gap in provision for children aged 2 and punitive welfare policies such as the two-child limit and the benefit cap are further pushing families into poverty.

The responses to the final four questions on early years provision outline the support needed for the early years sector going forward, and the priorities for reform and investment. They present the case that:

• Pay, funding, workload, the impact of Covid-19 and a perception of being undervalued by government are all causes of recruitment and retention difficulties.
• The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these longstanding issues and has placed additional pressure on early years staff.
• The system is not meeting the needs of pupils with SEND. The number of children presenting with additional needs is increasing but support is scarce and faces significant delays.
• For Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS), recruitment, retention and inclusion difficulties are exacerbated by precarious funding arrangements.
• The reduction in family services is causing significant issues for children, parents, and early years staff.

Summary of recommendations

         Invest in Maintained Nursery Schools is essential.

         The benefit cap and two-child must be scrapped.

         To make employment within the sector affordable and attractive, the pay of early years staff should be increased.

         There should be Investment in family services, including Sure Start, to ensure families, especially disadvantaged families, can access the support they need.

         EYFS should be viewed as a discrete and unique phase of education. It should retain its own distinct approach to curriculum and pedagogy. The pressure for it to adopt a more formalised primary school approaches should be reversed.

How affordable and easy to understand is the current provision of childcare in England and what steps, if any, could be taken to improve it, especially in relation to families living within the most deprived areas in England?

The Early Years sector provides not only childcare, but education. Access to high-quality education is an essential part of a strategy for social and educational equality. It is vital that the language of policy-making reflects this fact and we have drafted our response accordingly. We hope to see a similar understanding reflected in the report of the Committee.

The costs of childcare now comprise nearly half of all the costs of bringing up a child[1]. These increasing costs are driving a rise in child poverty[2], with those at the bottom of the income distribution paying a higher proportion of their incomes than those at the top, and many being priced out of formal provision entirely[3].

There is significant inequality in the affordability of early years provision[4]. Those at the lower end of the income distribution have been hit hardest by rising costs[5], with families from BME backgrounds and parents with disabilities paying a higher proportion of their salaries than their counterparts[6]. Recent rises in costs are disproportionately affecting the poorest women[7]. High costs contribute to the incidence of poverty amongst lone-parent families, with 49 per cent of children in lone-parent families living in poverty[8].

Compounding the problem of unequal access, there is evidence to suggest that confusing eligibility rules and a perception of burdensome bureaucracy are dissuading people from accessing the childcare entitlements they are eligible for[9].

The worsening funding crisis in the Early Years sector is a factor in constraining available provision and driving up costs. Government underfunding is the main reason nurseries and maintain nursery schools (MNS) are closing or unable to offer free early years education. While recent promised increases in funding are welcome, they are simply not enough to avert more and more settings closing in the future.

Current patchwork provisions and inequalities arising from a confusing network of delivery models must be simplified and expanded to ensure that the impacts of unaffordable and unequal early years provision are minimised. Investing in Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS) to ensure the provision of free, high-quality early years education is essential.

Are the current entitlements providing parents/carers with sufficient childcare, and to what extent are childcare costs affecting parents/carers from returning to work full-time?

Rising costs prevent some parents from returning to work[10][11]. What is more, working families are being pushed into poverty by rising costs, further disincentivising work for families with children[12].

Under current provisions, there is a gap in childcare provision for children between the end of statutory maternity leave until children are eligible for free childcare hours, while costs for families with children under 2 have risen particularly quickly in recent years[13]. Falling real wages mean that middle-income workers are also struggling to meet rising costs. A 2022 NEU survey showed that a third of English state school teachers were struggling to get by on their income, with single parents citing rising nursery costs as a factor[14].

Whether the current Tax-Free Childcare scheme, and support for childcare from the benefits and tax credit system, is working effectively or whether these subsidies could be better used within other childcare subsidies.

It is important to highlight two devastating welfare policies that are significantly impacting families ability to afford and provide early years education: the benefit cap and the two-child limit.

123,000 households were subject to the benefit cap in November 2021[15]. Families with children are losing £235 a month, on average. The vast majority (85 per cent) of those affected by the benefit cap are families with children.

The number of UK children affected by the two-child limit in social security has reached 1.3 million (8.7% or 1 in 12 children) DWP figures show. The two-child limit is one of the biggest drivers of rising child poverty. By 2026/27, over 50 per cent of children in families with more than two children are forecast to be in poverty[16].

These punitive policies must be scrapped in any efforts to make early years education more affordable.

What challenges do early years providers face in terms of workforce, including recruiting, and retaining qualified staff, and the barriers faced by individuals joining the profession? To what extent has the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated workforce challenges?  

Early Years providers face multiple challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified staff. Research[17] and conversations with our members show that pay, funding, workload, Covid-19 and feeling undervalued by government are all causes of recruitment and retention difficulties. One leader told us,

‘We need more staff. We mostly don’t have the money to recruit, but when we do, nobody applies.’

Pay within the early years does not reflect high levels of workload and responsibilities, which are physically and mentally challenging[18]. One MNS teacher told us,

'The team works tirelessly at an intense pace. Wellbeing is low and sickness high. Staff often break down and we are constantly problem solving. The talk of leaving is commonplace I think people remain due to commitment to the job as they’ve been here a long time.’

This workload is increasing, to ‘pick up the pieces’ left by the cutting of other family services or to cope with the effects of EY settings reducing staff due to underfunding (see question 1). High workload is forcing practitioners of all levels and from all settings to leave the sector for other jobs with better working conditions.

Other factors are also significant. Low pay deters staff from applying for posts and persuades existing staff to look for alternative careers. It also prevents new mothers, who cannot afford to pay high childcare costs, returning to work. For those who do choose employment in the early years, pay is not high enough, and many are working additional jobs to make ends meet.

Low pay also contributes to the misrecognition of early years practitioners’ work, so that it is viewed as childcare, rather than as a distinct part of education that requires specialist knowledge and expertise. The low status and pay of the profession is driving highly qualified staff from the sector[19]. Research by the organisation Childcare During Covid notes that England has a much lower proportion of early years workers with a qualification (9.5%) compared to other OECD countries such as Australia (14.3%), Japan (50%), United States (44.4%) and Norway (45%)[20]. Having a highly skilled early years workforce is crucial in supporting children’s wellbeing, development and life chances[21]. It is essential that the work of early years staff is viewed as invaluable and specialised, reflected in pay levels which make a career in early years attractive and affordable.

For leaders in Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS), recruitment and retention difficulties are exacerbated by precarious fundings arrangements. Leadership teams find it challenging to plan for recruitment when funding arrangements are unclear and inconsistent. One leader believed that for entrants into the profession, Maintained Nurseries may appear a less attractive option because their future is uncertain.

‘Recruitment of Level 3[22] [practitioners] has been very difficult. We have lost 4 Level 3 members of staff in the last 2 years and just recruited 1 full time and 1 part time member of staff to replace – although this is also to do with falling levels of funding. We have not been able to recruit to fill our latest vacancy. This has led to increased workload and pressure for remaining staff as well as less support for children who really need it. Living costs are very high and there are better paid employment opportunities which impacts our ability to compete.’

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these longstanding issues and has placed additional pressure on early years staff – particularly affecting their capacity to respond to the all-round needs of children. In the NEU’s 2021 State of Education survey, 75% of our early years respondents said the number of pupils/students with mental health issues in their setting had increased, either slightly (58%) or greatly (17%). In our 2022 State of Education survey, 82% of primary and nursery school teachers reported that speech and language delay had increased (49% greatly, 33% slightly). The increase in need, without additional support, means staff’s capabilities are being pushed to the limit and as a result, children are losing out on the individual support they should be receiving.

As a member of a coalition[23] which has campaigned over a number of years for MNS to be funded adequately, the NEU is pleased that MNS supplementary funding has been increased and confirmed for the duration of the spending review and will increase annually during that time[24]. However, we are hearing reports that many MNS remain in a precarious position due to issues with the current funding system that require urgent review. MNS have not received the additional support with pandemic-related staffing costs that has been available to other schools, despite facing the same cost pressures. Many have gone over budget as a result, which will increase deficits: at the end of 2020/21, one in four MNS were reporting a deficit. The precarity of the MNS sector, which in terms of expertise should be regarded as the jewel of crown of early years education, is a scandal; the slow drain of MNS expertise undermines the sector as a whole.

MNS must have parity of treatment with other schools and be included in initiatives such as the Covid-19 Workforce Fund and mental health training for school staff. The costs of doing so would be a tiny proportion of the budget of such initiatives, but would provide crucial extra support for a group of schools which are under huge financial and staffing pressures. It remains a problem that MNS do not automatically get business rates reimbursed on the same basis as other schools, that they do not qualify for the discounts for which non-profit providers in the voluntary sector are eligible, and they were not able to benefit from the rates holidays from which profit-making nurseries benefited during the pandemic. MNS therefore lose out on all fronts. Business rates for nursery schools can be over £100,000 in some areas, so the absence of a rebate is a significant pressure on already overstretched budgets. The NEU recommends that the system of automatic business rates reimbursement is extended so that MNS can benefit.

The additional cost pressures of the pandemic and recent energy cost rises have also worsened a situation which was already unsustainable and needs to be addressed urgently.

It would be extremely short-sighted not to do so. Effective early intervention has proven economic benefits[25] as well as improving the life chances of those who benefit from it. England’s remaining MNS, staffed to a greater extent than other EY settings by qualified and specialist teachers, provide the highest quality education and care to children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of England. They support high proportions of children with SEND who would otherwise have nowhere to go, and above average proportions of children on Early Years Pupil Premium. They have a vital role to play in supporting educational recovery and supporting the levelling up agenda.  The MNS sector contains a higher proportion of disadvantaged children[26]. The decision, by default, to place it in a state of managed decline means that more children from disadvantaged backgrounds are missing out on a high quality, teacher-led education, which would greatly benefit them in primary school and beyond.

Whether the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system is meeting the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), and the improvements that could be made to better support young children with SEN within early years provisions 

The pandemic has resulted in more children presenting with additional needs[27], which has placed additional pressure on settings and staff. However, as a result of underfunding and cuts, the system is not meeting the needs of pupils with SEND. There is a growing number of children for whom early years settings cannot provide the levels of support which an Education, Health and Care Plan is intended to provide. As one MNS teacher told us:

‘Funding for EHCPs has not kept pace with increased salary costs. This means that EHCPs now provide significantly less support for the child or significantly more cost to the core budget of the provider. This is becoming untenable. This additional cost is making it increasingly difficult to provide any meaningful support for children with SEN who do not have an EHCP.’

NEU members tell us that the funding that settings receive does not cover the true cost of supporting children with highly complex needs, particularly in regard to staffing, where settings struggle to hire highly skilled practitioners who can work with children with SEND on a 1:1 basis.

SEND funding issues cause particular challenges for MNS where there are higher proportions of pupils with SEND, especially those with complex needs[28]. A survey of Maintained Nursery Schools carried out by Early Education in June 2021[29] found that:

• 41% of schools said their ability to support children with SEND was affected by difficulties in obtaining additional funding.
• 36% of schools said that staff cuts being made as a consequence of schools’ wider financial difficulties were affecting their ability to support children with SEND.
• 17% of schools said cuts made by local authorities to funding for specialist provision/reserved places/assessment centres had affected their ability to support children with SEND.
• Only 26% of schools said their ability to accept children with SEND was unaffected by funding constraints in the current or next school year. However, these schools warned that funding constraints were impacting staff workload, as well as quality of provision.

The experience of individual NEU members bears out the findings of the survey. Commenting on how quality of SEND provision is affected by funding constraints, one member (a reception teachers and assistant head) told us:

‘We have needs that should be in specialist provision, but there are no spaces. We are now effectively running specialist provision out of a converted bike shed to ensure the children are included in the general life of the school but also getting access to specialised support’

The increase in additional needs means that staff have seen an increase in paperwork, including preparation of EHCPs and referrals to external agencies, such as CAMHs, educational psychologists and Speech & Language therapists (SALT). Another of our members, an MNS SENCO, told us:

‘I am doing approximately 30 EHCP applications a year, it may well be more this year as I am already at about 18. This means I am now supporting over 70 children and their families, which can involve a stressful diagnostic process and supporting families coming to terms with their child’s needs.’

Despite the increase in paperwork, support is scarce and faces significant delays. Members reported that it would take a year for a child to be seen by a SALT and two years for multidisciplinary assessments (relating to autism, for instance) to take place. During this time, members report being expected to perform specialist tasks, such as speech and language therapy, in the absence of external professionals. It should be evident that insufficient support in the early years for SEND children has a long-term impact on their education and life chances. As one member told us:

‘The work we put in especially with SEN children and those from disadvantaged backgrounds is completely hidden from the system and not recognised. We undoubtably save the system money later on.  Our work is hampered by the lack of support services such as SALT and access to family workers.’

To what extent does the early years system adequately prepare young children for their transition into primary education, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds

Along with many other organisations in the Early Years Coalition[30], we would like to bring to bring to the attention of the Committee a slow and unwelcome drift towards eliminating the distinct and developmentally appropriate practices of EY education in favour of a general model of primary education. As outlined in question 4, the role of early years professionals is misrecognised. Our members feel similarly about the ways in which the early years phase is understood in current education policy: its specific character is overlooked and the learning needs of its children are misunderstood, as part of a misguided effort to assimilate it into primary school practice, to ‘be like the rest of the school’. The introduction of the phonics check, reception baseline and knowledge-rich curriculum have created ‘downward pressure’ on the early years. This has led to play being replaced with formal teaching and learning, in the hope that children will be better able to meet the future demands of the primary curriculum. NEU members believe that in order to best prepare children for primary school believe ‘EYFS should be extended into KS1, not the ‘other way around’. Their views are supported by research[31] which finds age-appropriate pedagogies result in greater benefits for children’s development. As it stands, our members believe that the current early years system is at risk of harming children’s learning. Under the pressures of formal learning, children are having less time to develop their prime areas (Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development. Communication and Language), which affects their learning long after the EYFS.

For disadvantaged children, this problem is worse. Identified as underperforming in relation to targets based on inappropriate measures of development, they may be subject to interventions; which place them apart from their classmates into additional tuition groups; as a result, they may lose the opportunity for developmental play. Cuts and underfunding also disproportionately affect their future education and life chances.

The extent to which the reduction of Sure Start Children’s Centres has affected children and families, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the role of Family Hubs 

The lack of support for families, including the reduction of Sure Start, is of great concern to our members, who believe its impact on children and families is significant, describing the situation as an ‘implosion’, ‘crisis’ and ‘perfect storm’. In the words of one member,

‘All universal facilities have gone, lots of other services are drastically reduced and often phone based. Far fewer families are accessing support despite needing it and there’s very little joined up working or transition support for families. They were closed all through lockdown and still aren't back to pre-pandemic levels of contact.’

The range of services families need, but cannot access, is extensive:

• Parenting classes, including on toileting, teeth, behaviour and sleep
• Parenting networks
• Mental health support, including drugs and alcohol services
• Post-natal support
• Health visitors
• Family support workers
• Doctors’ appointments

Members have seen the impact of cuts to these services on both children and on their families - particularly those who are disadvantaged. An MNS SENCo gave a graphic account of the situation in many homes:

‘I have seen things on home visits that made me cry, many times. Huge rats, bedbugs, mice, drug users using the communal hallway as a toilet, many, many families living in one room in shared house.

Parents are suffering high levels of mental illness, including stress and anxiety. I had a mum come in to see me just this week in total despair, saying she couldn't carry on. Parents are forced to use to devices to entertain kids as there is literally nowhere for them to play, they are often sharing HMOs with people who have mental health challenges or addiction, so keeping children both quiet and safe is a priority. Parents are far less likely to be able to have a cheery chat with their children and keeping kids books in a space not much bigger than the double bed the whole family share is not really a priority, no wonder language development is so poor and getting worse.’

Members also report that children’s social and emotional development is suffering - children are far more anxious about leaving their parents and socialising with others. There are more children arriving in settings in nappies. Special needs are not being recognised early enough, which greatly impacts these children in early years and beyond. These are issues that would be mitigated by better family services.

EY staff have found that the decline of Sure Start provision has had an effect on the practical definition of their work, which has expanded to include:

• Health checks for two-year olds
• Speech and Language therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Emotional and mental health support for parents
• Parenting sessions.

No sustainable EY system can be built on the backs of a workforce subject to excessive and complex workloads, in a context of deepening social crisis.

January 2023