News
Review calls for establishment of “Foundation Years” covering prenatal to five
3 Dec 2010
Frank Field MP has today released the final report of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances. The Foundation Years: preventing poor children becoming poor adults calls for a fundamental shift in the way the UK approaches the issue of child poverty. In the introduction the report calls for a move away from a system based on financial targets such as tax credits and the New Deal and towards a system based on a holistic approach to early years education.
To measure progress the review recommends “establishing a set of Life Chance Indicators that measure how successful we are as a country in making more equal life’s outcomes for all children.” This is coupled with a movement towards a new tripartite education system encompassing the “Foundation Years” from the womb to five; the school years; and continuing and higher education.
Within these two overarching aims the report contains 24 specific recommendations including a refocusing of Sure Start on its original purpose, a movement of funding towards the early years and the creation of annual measures of “service quality” tracking whether children have suitable access to high quality services.
National Literacy Trust Director Jonathan Douglas says:
“The release of Frank Field’s review brings welcome focus to the vital importance of outcomes in the early years. As the final report states 80% of brain development occurs in the first three years of a child’s life and without a clear focus on supporting families to support early literacy development we will be unable to break the cycle of low social mobility that plagues the UK.
"One in six adults have poor literacy and many children are starting school with impoverished language putting then at a disadvantage to their peers. Our representations to the review were focused on the crucial importance of the home in developing early years speech, language and communication and we are excited to see how the recommendations in this review are taken forward.”
