Starting young in early years education boosts Foundation Stage Profile scores

An analysis of FSP scores found that the average score was higher for children who had been in early years education before they started school and was ‘statistically significant’.

The findings by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research are based on a sample of 7,939 children from the Millennium Cohort Study, with ‘sweeps’ of the data at three different stages, with the last one taking place when the children were five-years-old.

They chime with those of an earlier study, also based on findings from the MCS, which found that children who are exposed to any kind of formal childcare are at an advantage in all aspects of development before they start school (News, 25 February).

The latest research attempted to find a correlation between quality in early years settings and outcomes but found there was no significant relationship between any of the four key measures used and FSP results. None of the quality measures the report looked at were statistically significant related to FSP score.

The study also attempted to identify differences in outcomes by characteristics of children and the different settings they attend. It found no significant relationship between sector and FSP scores.

Co-author of the report David Wilkinson said, ‘In terms of FSP on our outcomes we don’t find variation by sector in terms of providers.’ However he said that in naming vocabulary tests, ‘when you look at those outcomes it looks like children in maintained settings [nursery schools and classes] do better.’
But the study also found that children in maintained settings had ‘significant worse scores on the pro-social behaviour scale than those in private settings.’

Researchers were also able to identify the age at which children started attending formal childcare, which was categorised by nursery school or class, playgroup, pre-school, childminder or day nursery. The majority of children surveyed started early years provision between the ages of two and four: 31 per cent started at two and 27 per cent when they were three. Thirty per cent of children were attending early years settings before their second birthday and just three per cent started after they turned four.

The research also examined whether Ofsted inspection judgements for early years settings were a good predictor of how well children were doing at the end of the Reception year by analysing 2005/06 Foundation Stage Profile assessment scores and 2005-08 Ofsted inspection results, with surprising results.

It concluded that there was only ‘a weak’ relationship between Ofsted’s judgement on the quality of a setting and children’s Foundation Stage Profile results.