For all too long, we’ve heard the (false) assertion that PVI provision ‘tends to be of lower quality’ bandied around as fact, and so it was heartening to see a report that reflected what we in the sector already knew to be true: that the vast majority of PVI providers provide high-quality care and education. In fact, 85 per cent of such providers (87 per cent of group settings and 84 per cent of childminders) now deliver ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ early years care and education, roughly the same proportion as primary schools (86 per cent).
You’d be forgiven for being surprised, therefore, that much of the media coverage of the report didn’t focus on the fact that the quality of early years provision was at a record high, nor did it acknowledge the fact that PVI providers have now been shown to deliver provision that is just as good as that of schools (despite significantly lower funding rates). Instead, we saw article after article focusing on Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw’s call for more schools to take disadvantaged two-year-olds.
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