Written evidence submitted by the Chartered College of Teaching
1. The Chartered College of Teaching (CCT) aims to ensure that teachers are working in the most effective, informed way to provide the best possible education for children and young people now, and in the future. We do this by supporting teachers, championing great teaching and raising the status of the profession.
2. The Education Committee’s inquiry aims to understand the impact that early years education and social policy have on determining children’s life chances. Our aim is to support early years educators to achieve optimum impact in all areas of a child’s development.
3. The CCT’s submission focuses on our area of expertise: early-years teachers and teaching. However, we recognise that the quality of the home learning environment has been found to have the most significant impact on later attainment (Sylva et al 2012).
4. Our evidence focuses on a set of programmes that have been shown to have impact over the long term (Kautz, 2014). Clearly, not all early years education will be as effective as these model programmes, but this approach has the benefit of 1) showing what is possible with good early years, and 2) focusing on what works to help guide policy development. Short descriptions of the programmes referred to in text are provided at the end of the paper.
5. We define early years education (EYE) as all programmes delivered within institutional settings (centre-based) and targeted at children between the age of zero and five. This distinguishes EYE from either informal, familial care; or programmes aimed at improving parenting skills.
6. The impact of EYE has been studied in terms of a wide range of outcomes including: educational attainment; later (e.g. primary and secondary) educational attainment; executive functions; and adult earnings. High-quality EYE has also been found to have particular benefits for children who have a poor early years home learning environment (Sylva et al, 2012; Elango, 2015).
7. There is currently strong evidence that EYE programmes improve short term (end of EYE) measures of pupil attainment. This includes evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of small programmes such as Abecedarian and Perry Pre-School (Breitmayer & Ramey 1986; Heckman et al., 2010) and quasi-experimental studies of scaled-up, national programmes such as Head Start (Currie & Thomas, 1995).
8. An important finding from research on EYE programmes is that the benefits often fade out in terms of later attainment at primary and secondary school (Barnett, 2007; Kautz et al., 2014).
9. Having said this, recent quasi-experimental research suggests that there may be sustained positive impacts on pupil attainment at school if increased investment in EYE is combined with sufficient quality of school age education. For example, a recent re-analysis of the Head Start programme in the US shows that where pupils went on to attend well-funded schools, positive effects on attainment were maintained into school (Johnson & Jackson, 2017). Similarly, EYE pupils who went on to experience effective kindergarten (reception) teachers saw sustained impact on attainment (Swain et al., 2014). It is important to note here that the sustained impact on attainment from having both EYE and high-quality primary education is over and above that expected from having high-quality primary education in isolation.
10. The EPPSE study (Sylva et al, 2012) also found that high quality pre-school still showed beneficial outcomes after 10 years of intervening experiences from multiple influences, with continuing effects for later attainment in maths and science, although not in English.
11. Executive functions (e.g. perseverance and self-control) are also affected by EYE (Diamond & Lee, 2011). For example, an RCT of the Tools of the Mind curriculum have shown it to reduce behavioural problems (Barnett et al., 2008) and improve control of attention and inhibitory control (Blair & Raver, 2014). The EPPSE study also found that higher pre-school quality also predicted better social-behavioural outcomes at age 14 (Sylva et al, 2012). The Sure Start programmes in England showed a positive impact on social development measures, including social behaviour and self-regulation, at age 3 (NESS Research Team, 2008); although this benefit appeared to fade by age 5, this may have been due to those who were not part of a Sure Start programme having had comparable pre-school experience at age 3 and 4 due to free childcare entitlement at these ages (Melhuish, 2010).
Adult Earnings
12. Long term follow up from the Perry Pre-School programme RCTs show that those who participated had higher levels of employment and earnings both at age 27 and age 40 (Schweinhart et al., 2005). Similarly, long-term follow up of the Abecedarian programme shows that participants were more likely to be in high-skilled jobs (Campbell et al., 2002).
13. The most effective EYE programmes improve a wide range of outcomes over both the short and long term.
14. However, it should be noted that not all programmes are this effective. While improving outcomes through EYE is possible, it is not straightforward. The content and delivery of EYE needs to be carefully designed in order to improve life chances, and different approaches will influence different outcomes. For example, no positive impact on cognitive outcomes was found at age seven in the Sure Start Children’s Centres in England (Melhuish et al., 2012), but there were positive outcomes on a range of parenting measures. Some outcomes from EYE programmes may also only be evident over the longer term, for example adult earnings.
15. There is something of a paradox in the existing findings in that on the one hand the effects of EYE on attainment often fade out during school, and on the other hand effective EYE can improve outcomes for adults long after leaving school. Heckman et al (2013) reconcile these apparently contradictory findings by providing evidence that, even while attainment benefits fade out, the positive impact on non-cognitive skills bring about long-term benefits in terms of employment and earnings in adult life. Focusing on non-cognitive skills therefore seems important in securing lasting impact.
16. Investment in EYE yields return in financial terms as well; Perry Preschool has been estimated to have benefits 3.9-6.8 times larger than its costs, and Abecedarian has been estimated to have benefits 3.2 times larger than its costs (Elango et al., 2015). The sources of these cost benefits include gains in health and reduction in crime as well as gains in parental income while participants are young and gains in participants’ own later-life income.
17. A common policy proposal for improving the quality of EYE is to improve the quality of early years teachers by e.g. requiring them to have bachelors degrees. However, seven studies from the US find no robust link with pupil attainment (Early et al., 2007).
18. A more promising route for reform is to adopt specific professional development programmes for EYE teachers to help them improve both the academic attainment and executive functions of their pupils.
19. Several programmes have been shown to help EYE teachers improve young pupils’ mathematics attainment (Clements & Samara, 2011). For example, the Building Blocks programme has been shown in two randomised trials to improve young pupils’ mathematics attainment (Clements & Samara, 2008; Clements et al., 2011). Interestingly, in a third scaled-up trial in which elementary (primary) school teachers were also given training on how to build on the pre-kindergarten (EYE) intervention, the impact on attainment also persisted into primary school.
20. Several programmes have been shown to help EYE teachers improve young pupils’ literacy attainment. For example, Landry and colleagues from the University of Texas have developed a comprehensive EYE professional development programme which utilises coaching to help teachers implement a carefully sequenced literacy instruction programme. This programme has been shown in an RCT to improve young pupils’ literacy attainment even when delivered at scale (Landry et al., 2011). Interestingly, one RCT tested the intervention with and without the coaching element and found it to have the largest effect when coaching was used (Landry et al., 2009). This is consistent with a meta-analysis which suggests that coaching is a highly effective form of professional development for teachers (Kraft et al., 2018).
21. Several EYE programmes have been shown to help EYE teachers improve executive functions and self-regulation of young pupils (Blair & Raver, 2015). For example, the Chicago School Readiness Project provides EYE teachers with behaviour management training and has been shown in RCTs (Raver et al., 2009; Raver et al., 2011) to improve young pupils’ behaviour, attention and impulse control. As well as improving executive functions, this intervention also improved pupils’ academic attainment as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming and maths skills.
22. There are several professional development interventions which have been shown to improve the quality of EYE teaching, as measured by attainment and executive functions.
23. Looking across the available evidence, coaching combined with carefully designed and planned curriculum packages seem to be a particularly important component of such interventions (Kraft et al., 2018; Duncan & Magnusen, 2015).
“Perry provided one or two years of part-day educational services and weekly home visits to 58 low-income, low-IQ, African American children aged three and four in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during the 1960s. The curriculum was geared to the children’s age and capabilities, emphasizing child-initiated learning activities. Staff encouraged children to engage in play activities that would promote their problem-solving skills as well as their intellectual, social, and physical development. Program staff made weekly one- to two-hour afternoon visits to each family. The center’s child-to-teacher ratio was low; each of four teachers served only 20–25 children every year. Per-pupil costs amounted to about $20,000 per child (in 2011 dollars).”
“The Abecedarian program, which served 57 low-income, mostly African American families from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, provided even more-intensive services than Perry Preschool. Beginning in 1972, children assigned to the Abecedarian “treatment” received year-round, full-time center-based care for five years, starting in the child’s first year of life. The Abecedarian preschool program included transportation, individualized educational activities that changed as the children grew older, and low child–teacher ratios of 3:1 for the youngest children and up to 6:1 for older children. Abecedarian teachers followed a curriculum that focused on language development and explained to teachers the importance of each task as well as how to teach it. High-quality health care, additional social services, and nutritional supplements were also provided to participating families.”
“Tools of the Mind (Tools) is a curriculum for preschool and kindergarten developed by Bodrova and Leong (33) based on work by Vygotsky (34). Vygotsky emphasized the importance of social pretend play for the early development of EFs. During pretend play, children must inhibit acting out of character, remember their own and others’ roles, and flexibly adjust as their friends improvise. Such play exercises all three core EFs and is central to Tools. Children plan who they will be in a pretend scenario, and the teacher holds them accountable for following through.”
“Head Start is a comprehensive, national, federally-funded early childhood program that was established in 1964 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” to provide education, health care, nutrition, and other services to poor children before kindergarten entry.”
“Head Start… uses a comprehensive approach to service delivery, including nutrition programs and health check-ups, social services, such as assistance by lawyers, and parent involvement. The majority of Head Start programs operate part-day and part-year, but some also provide full-day education and care to support parents in the labor market.”
“Sure Start introduced in 1998 as a multi-departmental programme of early intervention for under-fours. • Delivered initially through local programmes, directed by a range of stakeholders within the most deprived areas. • Ten year childcare strategy in 2004 changed focus to delivery of services through children’s centres. • Children’s centres had an increased focus on childcare and early years education, with services provided to the under-fives.” Throughout the programme there was substantial variation in the services offered in each children’s centre.
“(CSRP) provided Head Start teachers with extensive behavior-management training and suggestions for reducing their stress. Strategies taught were… e.g., implement clearer rules and routines, reward positive behavior, and redirect negative behavior). CSRP intentionally did not train teachers in academic instruction or provide curricula on academic subjects. It emphasized developing verbally skilled strategies for emotion regulation. Mental health consultants conducted stress-reduction workshops for teachers all year. Children with the worst externalizing behavior received one-on-one counseling.”
“The Building Blocks curriculum was designed to help children extend and mathematize their everyday activities, from building blocks, to art and stories to puzzles and games. Educational goals included developing competence in the two domains consistently identified as foundational: (i) number concepts… and arithmetical operations, and (ii) spatial and geometric concepts and processes. Each of these domains was structured along research-based learning trajectories… around which varied educational activities can be structured.”
Barnett, W. S., Jung, K., Yarosz, D. J., Thomas, J., Hornbeck, A., Stechuk, R., et al. (2008). Educational effects of the Tools of the Mind curriculum: A randomized trial. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23, 299–313.
Bate, A., & Foster, D. (2017). Sure start (England). House of Commons Library Briefing Paper Number 7257, 9 June.
Barnett, W. S. (2011). Effectiveness of early educational intervention. Science, 333(6045), 975-978.
Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2014). Closing the achievement gap through modification of neurocognitive and neuroendocrine function. PloS one, 9(11).
Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2015). School readiness and self-regulation: A developmental psychobiological approach. Annual review of psychology, 66, 711-731.
Breitmayer, B. J. and C. T. Ramey (1986, October). Biological nonoptimality and quality of postnatal environment as codeterminants of intellectual development. Child Development 57 (5), 1151–1165.
Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2008). Experimental evaluation of the effects of a research-based preschool mathematics curriculum. American educational research journal, 45(2), 443-494.
Clements, D. H., Sarama, J., Spitler, M. E., Lange, A. A., & Wolfe, C. B. (2011). Mathematics learned by young children in an intervention based on learning trajectories. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 42(2), 127-166.
Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2011). Early childhood mathematics intervention. Science, 333(6045), 968-970.
Clements, D. H., Sarama, J., Wolfe, C. B., & Spitler, M. E. (2013). Longitudinal evaluation of a scale-up model for teaching mathematics with trajectories and technologies: Persistence of effects in the third year. American Educational Research Journal, 50(4), 812-850.
Currie, J. and D. Thomas (1995, June). Does Head Start make a difference? American Economic Review 85 (3), 341–364.
Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333(6045), 959-964.
Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, K. (2013). Investing in preschool programs. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(2), 109-32.
Early, D. M., Maxwell, K. L., Burchinal, M., Alva, S., Bender, R. H., Bryant, D., ... & Henry, G. T. (2007). Teachers' education, classroom quality, and young children's academic skills: Results from seven studies of preschool programs. Child development, 78(2), 558-580.
Elango, S., García, J. L., Heckman, J. J., & Hojman, A. (2015). Early childhood education. National Bureau of Economic Research.
Johnson, R. C., & Jackson, C. K. (2017). Reducing Inequality Through Dynamic Complementarity: Evidence from Head Start and Public School Spending (No. w23489). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kautz, T., Heckman, J. J., Diris, R., Ter Weel, B., & Borghans, L. (2014). Fostering and measuring skills: Improving cognitive and non-cognitive skills to promote lifetime success (No. w20749). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D., & Hogan, D. (2018). The effect of teacher coaching on instruction and achievement: A meta-analysis of the causal evidence. Review of Educational Research.
Landry, S. H., Anthony, J. L., Swank, P. R., & Monseque-Bailey, P. (2009). Effectiveness of comprehensive professional development for teachers of at-risk preschoolers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(2), 448.
Landry, S. H., Swank, P. R., Anthony, J. L., & Assel, M. A. (2011). An experimental study evaluating professional development activities within a state funded pre-kindergarten program. Reading and Writing, 24(8), 971-1010.
Heckman, J. J. et al. (2010b, August). Analyzing social experiments as implemented: A reexamination of the evidence from the High Scope Perry Preschool Program. Quantitative Economics 1 (1), 1–46
Heckman, J. J., R. Pinto, and P. A. Savelyev (2013). Understanding the mechanisms through which an influential early childhood program boosted adult outcomes. American Economic Review 103(6), 2052–2086.
Melhuish, E. C., Belsky, J., & Leyland, A. H. (2010). The impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on five year olds and their families. Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck, University of London
Melhuish, E. C., Belsky, J., & Leyland, A. H. (2012). The impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on seven year olds and their families. Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck, University of London
NESS Research Team (2008). The impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on three year olds and their families. Nottingham, United Kingdom: Department for Education and Skills.
Raver, C. C., Jones, S. M., Li-Grining, C. P., Metzger, M., Champion, K. M., & Sardin, L. (2008). Improving preschool classroom processes: Preliminary findings from a randomized trial implemented in Head Start settings. Early childhood research quarterly, 23(1), 10-26.
Raver, C.C., Jones, S.M., Li-Grining, C.P., Zhai, F., Bub, K. and Pressler, E. CSRP’s impact on low-income preschoolers’ pre-academic skills: self-regulation as a mediating mechanism. Child Dev. 2011; 82(1):362–78.
Raver, C.C., Jones, S.M., Li-Grining, C.P., Zhai, F., Metzger, M., snf Solomon, B. Targeting children’s behavior problems in preschool classrooms: a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Journal Consult Clin Psychol. 2009; 77(2):302–16.
Schweinhart, L. J., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Belfield, C. R., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The high/scope perry preschool study through age 40 (monographs of the high/scope educational research foundation, 14). Ypsilanti, MI: High Scope Educational Research Foundation.
Swain, W. A., Springer, M. G., & Hofer, K. G. (2015). Early Grade Teacher Effectiveness and Pre-K Effect Persistence: Evidence From Tennessee. AERA Open, 1(4), 2332858415612751.
Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I., and Taggart, B. (2012) Final Report from the Key Stage 3 Phase: Influences on Students’ Development from age 11 – 14. Department for Education