The importance of a well-educated workforce in early years settings

An interesting report was published recently examining social mobility and in particular the significant gap in ‘school readiness’ between the wealthiest and poorest 4 and 5 year-olds.

The Sutton Trust, a leading education charity, concluded that the key to narrowing this gap is developing a well-educated early years workforce and that this could be achieved through well-targeted investment in training for those who work in the early years sector.

According to the report vocabulary tests at the age of 4 and 5 have revealed that children from poorer backgrounds in the United Kingdom are on average approximately 19 months behind their peers. In Australia this gap is 14.5 months, in Canada it is 10.6 months while in the United States it is approximately 22 months. These gaps tend to get wider as children go through school and whilst the report highlighted the educational attainment of parents as being the primary reason for the gaps, the trust believes that improving the education of early years professionals is essential. It’s important for children to be around adults with a good level of education as this can drastically improve their vocabulary, social and cognitive skills. If a child does not have a suitable role-model at home it’s vital that early years professionals can fill the void.

At present there seems to be a perception that those who work with young children needn’t be educated to such a high standard as their counterparts who work with older age groups. According to the Chairman of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl this is very damaging and is a false economy:  

 “Working with young children should not be seen as a lower skilled, lower paid or lower status profession than working with those over the age of five. Most of the gaps that we see between poorer and better off young people are evident from a very early age, so investing wisely at this stage can make a huge difference”

The report can be downloaded from the Sutton Trust website.