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Findings from the Pre-school Period
K. Sylva, E. Melhuish, P. Sammons, I. Siraj-Blatchford, B.
Taggart and K. Elliot, Institute of Education, University
of London, 2003
The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) study
is a long-term research project by a team from the Institute
of Education, Birkbeck, University of London and the University
of Oxford on the impact of pre-school education. To investigate
this impact on 3 and 4 year olds, the EPPE team collected
a wide range of information on over 3,000 children, their
parents, their home environments and the pre-school settings
they attended. It also investigated the characteristics of
good practice in these settings through twelve case studies.
The research on the pre-school period demonstrates that good
quality pre-school experiences support children's social and
educational development; good quality provision can be found
across all types of early years settings, with integrated
centres that offer combined education and childcare and nursery
schools delivering the best results; learning at home with
parents, combined with high quality pre-school education,
makes a positive difference to children's social and intellectual
development; and that disadvantaged children in particular
benefit significantly from good quality pre-school experiences.
The research therefore indicates that pre-school can play
an important part in promoting social inclusion, by offering
such children a better start to primary school.
The study found that the quality of the learning environment
of the home where parents are actively engaged in activities
with children, promoted intellectual and social development
in all children, and could be viewed as a 'protective' factor
in reducing incidence of special educational needs. Although
parents' social class and levels of education were related
to child outcomes, the quality of the home learning environment
(HLE) was more important. The HLE was only moderately associated
with social class and the mother's educational level. What
parents do is more important than who they are.
Further research will follow the progress of the children
who attended a pre-school setting and those who did not, in
an attempt to establish whether the positive impact of pre-school
education on children's development remains significant as
they progress through primary school. Read a summary
of findings from the end of key stage 1. The second phase
of the EPPE study covers 2003-2008.
Nursery pupils who show early signs of special educational
needs (SEN) dramatically improve their ability simply be being
in pre-school. The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education
Project, the most significant long-term study of three to
five-year-olds in Britain, has found that one in three display
"soft" indicators of SEN at age three but this reduces
substantially to one in five by age five.
Advocates of pre-five education believe the evidence from
the joint London and Oxford university study of 3,000 children
between 1997 and 2003 points conclusively to even more investment
to head off difficulties that grow larger and more costly
as pupils move through formal schooling.
Most SEN spending is in the school sector and any transfer
to pre-school would represent a major transfer policy switch.
The findings assume added importance in Scotland with the
Scottish Parliament now considering a draft bill on additional
support for learning that will back early intervention - but
mainly in the school sector.
Brenda Taggart of the Institute of Education in London told
an international conference in Glasgow in September 2003 that
pre-school education was "a very effective intervention"
for children at risk. They were often born underweight and
came from large families in lower socio-economic groups. Boys
and ethnic minority groups were over-represented.
The evidence about the value of pre-school education for
this particular group of pupils follows the revelation that
local authority nursery schools continue to do better than
voluntary groups and private nurseries. Children do well in
all pre-school settings, especially compared with those that
stay at home, but council nurseries with highly qualified
and better trained and paid staff are the most effective for
all social classes. Integrated centres, which include day
care and nurseries, and nursery schools led by trained teachers
do best. They are most effective in improving behaviour and
dealing with at-risk groups. They clearly show that disadvantage
is combated by early intervention strategies.
Initial finding of the EPPE project were released earlier
in 2003 but full details of the findings were only disclosed
at the European Early Childhood Education Research Association
conference at Strathclyde University in September 2003.
Kathy Sylva, professor of educational psychology at Oxford,
said that findings from the project matched those around the
world. "Different studies in different countries point
in the same direction," she said. All of the 141 pre-school
settings in the study brought benefits. In contrast, children
with no pre-five experience displayed poorer attainment, social
skills and concentration.
Children's progress increased commensurately with the level
of qualifications of staff. Nursery schools and integrated
centres run by local authorities were most effective in reducing
anti-social behaviour and breaking the cycle of disadvantage.
The more terms children spent in pre-school, the higher the
return. Moreover, children were sensitive to quality regardless
of their parents' background - "even if your barrister
parents read to you everyday".
(TESS 12 September 2003)
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