Nursery World - End of term report

While Hodge, Blunkett and other Government figures have missed an opportunity to rethink early childhood services, there's still time to try harder, argues Professor Peter Moss Since May 1997, unparalleled attention and resources have been devoted to early childhood services. There can be no doubting these services are a priority of the Labour Government, nor the Government's determination to increase and improve provision.

Since May 1997, unparalleled attention and resources have been devoted to early childhood services. There can be no doubting these services are a priority of the Labour Government, nor the Government's determination to increase and improve provision.

However, behind the flurry of activity, a larger opportunity has been slipping away - the opportunity to transform a neglected and incoherent confusion of services into an 'integrated and coherent early years service', in the words of a pre-election Labour Party policy document.

Instead, we are settling for a process of reformation, driven not so much by concern for early childhood as an important stage of life in its own right or for young children as a social group, but by the imperatives of other major Government projects. Rather than thinking the unthinkable, the Government has opted for more and better of the same.

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