Extending Free Early Education to More Two
Year Olds
A response from the Special Educational Consortium and
the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign
The Special Educational Consortium came together in 1992 to protect and
promote the interests of disabled children and children with special
educational needs (SEN). SEC is a broad consortium of 33 professional,
voluntary sector and provider organisations.
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign is a consortium campaign run by
four of the leading organisations working with disabled children and their
families: Contact a Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and
the Special Educational Consortium. Since its launch, EDCM has gained over
34,000 individual supporters.
We welcome this opportunity to contribute to the discussion about how the
Government might achieve its ambition to extend free early education to 40
percent of disadvantaged two year-olds over the next two years, an
estimated 149,900 2 year-olds in 2013 and 296,300 in 2014.
We want to preface our response to the consultation with some wider points
about the development of early years provision for disabled children and
children with SEN.
Context
It has long been recognised that families with disabled young children
struggle to access appropriate provision. In 2009 almost half (49 percent) of
local authorities reported insufficient childcare for disabled children1. The
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Daycare Trust (2010) Childcare cost survey
Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2008 – 2009 found that 31 per
cent of families with disabled children2 disagreed or strongly disagreed that
there were providers in their local area that cater for their child’s condition.
In 2009, the evaluation of the Early Education Pilot for Two Year Old
Children identified:
 parents of disabled children and children with SEN as being more likely
to drop out of the pilot; and
 the need for more provision that would better meet the needs of
disabled children and children with SEN3.
A development project carried out by the Council for Disabled Children for
the then Department for Children, Schools and Families identified a number
of barriers to the take-up by disabled children of children’s centre and
extended schools provision. These included barriers relating to: lack of
information for parents, attitudes, lack of parental confidence, funding and
charges, buildings and access4. The project also identified creative solutions
to overcome these barriers, but without the recognition of the existence and
the nature of the barriers it is difficult to improve access.
Research evaluating the Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare (DCATCH)
programme found that families with disabled children faced difficulties in
accessing childcare due to:
 Refusal of group childcare providers to accept their child unless they
had 1-1 support in place;
 Prohibitive cost of 1-1 support in group childcare settings;
 Lack of availability of private childminders (especially in rural areas);
 Additional costs charged by private childminders for disabled children;
 Difficulties in finding childminders who would accept their children for
reasons relating to either the child’s impairment, behaviour or support
needs.5
A survey of 350 families with disabled children found that 90 per cent of
families reported that the costs of childcare were a major deterrent to work.
who had an illness/disability that disrupted their daily life
Smith R, Purdon S, Schneider V, La Velle I, Wollny I, Owen R and Bryson C (2009) Early Education
Pilot for Two Year Old Children Evaluation DCSF Research Report RR134
4 Stobbs P (2008) Extending Inclusion: Access for disabled children and young people to extended
schools and children’s centres: a development manual. Council for Disabled Children
5 Department for Education (2011) Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare (DCATCH): a qualitative
evaluation
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In 2003, families supporting a disabled child were 2.5 times more likely than
other families to have no parent working for more than sixteen hours per
week6. The barriers to work created by high cost and inaccessible childcare
contribute to families with disabled children being disproportionately likely to
live in poverty.
The DCATCH programme had very positive results. Amongst families
involved in the programme it raised expectations about returning to work,
helping them to feel confident that finding employment, increasing hours
and/or finding a better job was possible. It also reassured some
understandably anxious parents that they could entrust their children to
other people7. 40 per cent of parents involved in the programme evaluation,
who were in employment, said that the childcare provided under DCATCH
made the difference between working and not working at all.
The DCATCH programme also benefited the children who accessed childcare.
The childcare provided encompassed a wide range of activities and parents
said that these provided positive and enjoyable opportunities for disabled
children and young people. Disabled children and young people who took
part in the evaluation all expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the
activities they were involved with8.
At the same time, the benefits of high quality early education for young
disabled children and children with SEN are clear: over and above the
benefits for all young children, the EPPE study found significant social,
behavioural and benefits to children’s well-being for this group of young
children9.
SEC and EDCM are concerned that unless specific measures are taken to
secure disabled children’s inclusion in the free early education offer, young
disabled children and young children with SEN will not access the offer. By
Emerson, E & Hatton, C. (2005), The socio-economic circumstances of families supporting a child at
risk of poverty in Britain in 2001, Lancaster, Lancaster University
7 Emerson, E & Hatton, C. (2005), The socio-economic circumstances of families supporting a child at
risk of poverty in Britain in 2001, Lancaster, Lancaster University
8 Emerson, E & Hatton, C. (2005), The socio-economic circumstances of families supporting a child at
risk of poverty in Britain in 2001, Lancaster, Lancaster University
9 Sylva K, Melhuish E, Sammons P, Siraj-Blatchford I and Taggart B (2008) Effective Pre-school and
Primary Education 3-11 Project (EPPE 3-11): Final Report from the Primary Phase: Pre-school, School
and Family Influences on Children’s Development during Key Stage 2 (Age 7-11) DCSF Research
Report 061
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making disabled children explicitly eligible for free early education from 2014
local authorities will be able to prioritise the creation of accessible early
years childcare settings, ensuring that the Government will attain its goal to
extend free early education to all children living in ‘economic disadvantage’.
The evidence shows that young disabled children and young children
with SEN are less likely to access early education and childcare, yet
they are more likely to benefit from the provision.
Capacity and quality
The evidence shows that it is high quality early years provision that can have
a lasting effect on later outcomes and has a protective effect in terms of the
development of SEN. SEC and EDCM have concerns about the potential for
local provision to expand sufficiently to accommodate the numbers of two
year-olds at the same time as improving the quality of provision for disabled
children and children with SEN in order to increase access.
Particularly relevant to improving access for young disabled children are:
staff skills and training; the capacity and skills of staff to work closely with
families and plan provision together; and access to relevant specialist
expertise locally. A further aspect of quality is continuity between the two
year-old and three year-old entitlement. Gaps in provision reduce the benefit
to young children. The Department should ensure that the criteria and
timing for the two year-old offer provide for continuity with the criteria and
timing for the three year-old offer, with its single point of entry in the
September after a child’s third birthday.
A focus on key aspects of accessibility and quality will be vital during the
development period and, in particular, for the contractor supporting local
authorities in developing capacity. It will be important to draw on a careful
analysis of the work in local authorities who have extended provision to two
year olds to date and to identify key factors that have enabled or hindered
access for disabled children. The evaluation of the pilot, published in 200910,
suggested that parents of disabled young children and young children with
Smith R, Purdon S, Schneider V, La Velle I, Wollny I, Owen R and Bryson C (2009) Early Education
Pilot for Two Year Old Children Evaluation DCSF Research Report RR134
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SEN were both more likely to drop out of the pilot and more likely to report
that they needed more help and support.
Issues of access and quality in free early education must be
addressed if disabled young children and young children with SEN
are to benefit from the free early education offer.
Funding for the two year-old offer
We welcome the £534 million and £760 million for free education for two
year olds in 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively. However, at the same time,
the Government is making further cuts to the Early Intervention Grant
(EIG). On aggregation of all the constituent grants into the EIG in 2010, a
cut of £311million was made in the financial year 2010-11, with further
percentage cuts being made in 2011-12 and 2012-13 and further cuts
proposed for 2013-14 and 2014-15. This means that, whilst meeting the two
year-old offer, local authorities will have to reduce funding for children’s
centres, short breaks for disabled children and other services on which the
families of disabled children rely.
This is quite unacceptable. It undermines the ability of local authorities to
continue to deliver services that are currently funded through the EIG and
which support the delivery of the two year old offer, for example children’s
centres; it undermines the potential benefit of the two year-old offer for
disabled children and their families if, at the same time as securing a free
early education place, they lose other services.
Additional designated funding is required to support the two year old
offer.
Extending the offer to two year-old children with a statement of SEN
(or an education, health and care plan) or in receipt of DLA
SEC & EDCM support the extension of the free early education offer to two
year-olds with a statement, or an education, health and care plan, and to
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those two year-olds who attract DLA. However, the numbers of children who
will benefit through these routes are tiny.
The consultation recognises that the numbers of children are small, quoting
around 8,000 two year olds who attract DLA and around 250 who have a
statement. The numbers of children under 3 who have a statement are even
lower in the 2012 data, at 225. This may include some one year-olds, but
many of these 225 children are likely to have received their statement as
they approached their third birthday so may not be eligible in time to benefit
from an additional year of early education.
A rough calculation suggests that the percentage of the entire cohort who
may be identified through the suggested routes may be just over 1 percent.
Disabled young children and young children with SEN need to be more proactively identified. Many will be identified through the criteria on
disadvantage, but many more may fall into poverty in the coming years or
will experience other disadvantages, in particular if this early education
opportunity is not extended to them.
SEC and EDCM support the extension of the free early education
offer to two year-olds with a statement, or an EHC plan, and to those
two year-olds who attract DLA.
The feasibility and appropriateness of extending the free entitlement
to more children with SEND.
It is vital that the Department agrees further criteria against which to
identify the larger group of disabled children who would benefit from the
additional year of early education.
We need to be very clear about the benefit of identifying more young
disabled children who will take up the free early education offer. Disabled
children are more likely to live in or at the margins of poverty but many fall
into poverty as the developmental gap between them and their peers starts
to widen and first one parent then sometimes a second parent has to give up
work in order to care for a disabled child. We also know that disabled
children are more likely to live in single parent families, where the impact of
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the loss of earned income from one parent represents the loss of the entire
family income.
In order to identify the wider group of disabled children who could benefit
most from the two year-old offer, there needs to be a focus on children
whose families, even if they are not in poverty now, are at greater risk of
falling into poverty as the child grows older. Likewise for children with SEN:
the need is to identify early children who will have a statement at a young
age, for example at school entry or in Key Stage 1, even if they do not have
a statement as a two year-old.
We cannot over-emphasise the importance of identifying a means of
enabling more young disabled children to benefit from the offer. This needs
to be set alongside the development of appropriate provision. Many families
do not take up early education and childcare because of the lack of provision
adequately tailored to meet their needs; and it is often the lack of
appropriate early childcare and education that leads to parents giving up
work.
In discussions with the Department, we have suggested a range of criteria,
including referrals by health authorities through s.332 of the Education Act
1996 (statutory duty on health authorities to refer children who have, or
may have, special educational needs to local authorities). The consultation
document rejects this on the grounds of a risk of placing an unreasonable,
and unknown, burden on health authorities and local authorities who may
have to manage increasing numbers of referrals, or requests for referrals
from parents. We have suggested that children for whom a statutory
assessment is being carried out should also be eligible, that children
identified as disabled under s17 of the Children Act should be included.
Our members have suggested further ideas for the identification of disabled
young children and young children with SEN. Children could be identified
through existing checking and registration processes:
 the two year-old health visitor checks;
 the newborn hearing screening programme; and
 registration as being blind or partially-sighted.
Children could also be identified through existing programmes such as:
 the Early Support Programme; and
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 Portage programmes.
Other impairment specific programmes could also be a route to identification
of disabled children who would benefit from the two year-old offer. Even
though many children on the autism spectrum are not identified until later,
programmes such as the Early Bird programme provide an additional route.
In all, there are many ways of identifying young disabled children and young
children who have or may have SEN. Importantly, these are all existing
routes; they require no additional mechanisms.
For any local authority there may be a variety of ways of identifying young
disabled children and young children with SEN. Some local authorities have a
mechanism such as an ‘early years panel’ which brings together a variety of
sources of information. We think that the onus should be on local authorities
to identify the most appropriate local mechanisms for identifying disabled
two year-olds and two year-olds with SEN. The DfE should endorse and
promote such an approach.
The duty on local authorities should be clear: there must be free early
education for disabled two year-olds and two year-olds with SEN; the means
of identifying those children should be clear and transparent but determined
locally.
Additional criteria for disabled two year-olds and two year-olds with
SEN should be determined locally.
Do you agree that, from September 2014, two year olds who have
left care through an adoption order, special guardianship or
residence order, should be eligible for the free early education
entitlement?
SEC & EDCM welcome the fact that young children looked after by the local
authority are included in the 2013 offer. High numbers of disabled children
are looked after and we support the extension of the criteria to include two
year olds who have left care through an adoption order, special guardianship
or residence order.
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SEC & EDCM support the extension of the criteria to include two year
olds who have left care through an adoption order, special
guardianship or residence order.
Distributing the funding
We recommend, above, that young disabled children and young children
with SEN are identified through locally appropriate mechanisms. The current
calculations of the number of two year-olds who may be eligible is based on
estimates of how many two year-olds will meet the economic criteria for the
free places; they do not take into account two year-olds who are looked
after, children with statements of special educational needs or children who
attract Disability Living Allowance.
Because of the overlap between disabled children and disadvantage at a
demographic level, it would seem appropriate to make the calculation for
disabled children against the same criteria as are proposed for disadvantage.
However, this needs to be clearly stated to local authorities: that this is how
the calculation has been made for disabled two year-olds.
The Department should clearly identify the need for funding to be allocated
for developing the quality of early years education in order for it to be
accessible to young disabled children and young children with SEN.
Funding for disabled two year-olds and two year olds with SEN
should be calculated against the criteria for disadvantage. The basis
of the calculation should be clearly articulated. Funding to improve
accessibility should be included.
October 2012
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For more information please contact
Philippa Stobbs
Vice-Chair of the Special Educational Consortium
pstobbs@ncb.org.uk
020 7833 6855
Laura Courtney
Campaign Manager, Every Disabled Child Matters
Laura@edcm.org.uk
020 7843 6448
Matthew Dodd
Policy Officer, Special Educational Consortium
mdodd@ncb.org.uk
020 7843 9709
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