Nursery rhymes

The Department for Education has just released some analysis of take-up of early years provision by disadvantaged families which uses data from the 2008 and 2009 Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents series to look at the effectiveness of government policies designed to improve early years provision for disadvantaged families. Unsurprisingly, the report shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to access free early years provision. Again, unsurprisingly, one of the key factors in low take-up is lack of information. Overall take-up of early years provision amongst 3-4 year olds is high (92%), although largely because reception classes in primary schools are the main provider for 4 year olds. The significant gap appears amongst disadvantaged children at 3 years old, where only 24% of children received early years provision, in contrast to 95% of disadvantaged 4 year olds.