Early Learning and Child Well-being in England

Description

The first five years of a child’s life is a period of great opportunity, and risk. The cognitive and social-emotional skills that children develop in these early years have long-lasting impacts on their later outcomes throughout schooling and adulthood. This report sets out the findings from the International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study in England. The study assesses children’s skills across both cognitive and social-emotional development, and how these relate to children’s early learning experiences at home and in early childhood education and care. It is enriched by contextual and assessment information from the children’s parents and educators. It provides comparative data on children’s early skills with children from Estonia and the United States, who also participated in the study, to better identify factors that promote or hinder children’s early learning. Foreword Acknowledgements Table of contents Executive summary Reader’s guide Abbreviations and acronyms Chapter 1 - Early learning matters: The International Early Learning and Child Well‑being Study The early years: A window of opportunity … and risk Chapter 2 - The context of early learning in England Profile of children under five and their families in England Strategies to strengthen early learning in England Early childhood education and care provision in England Participation rates in ECEC The quality of early childhood education and care services and their impact on learning outcomes Policy issues and debates around early learning Chapter 3 - Children’s emergent literacy and numeracy skills in England The importance of early literacy and numeracy development Emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes in England Individual characteristics and emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes Home and family characteristics and emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes Home learning environment ECEC Background and emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes Assessing the combined effects of child, family and ECEC characteristics on emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes Relationships between emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes and outcomes in other learning domains Summary and conclusions Chapter 4 - Children’s self-regulation outcomes in England The importance of self-regulation development Self-regulation skills of five-year-olds in England Children’s individual characteristics are related to their self-regulation skills Children’s home and family backgrounds are related to their self-regulation outcomes Children’s home learning environment is related to their self-regulation development Children’s ECEC attendance is related to their self-regulation outcomes at age five Assessing the combined effects of child, family and ECEC characteristics on self‑regulation scores A child’s self-regulation outcomes are related to their early literacy, numeracy and social-emotional outcomes Summary and conclusions Chapter 5 - Children’s social-emotional development in England The importance of social-emotional development Social-emotional skills of five-year-olds in England Individual characteristics and early social-emotional skills Home and family characteristics and early social-emotional skills Home learning environment and early social-emotional skills Early childhood education and care and early social-emotional skills Early social-emotional skills and emergent literacy and numeracy outcomes Summary and conclusions Chapter 6 - Summary and conclusions The promise of early learning Summary of IELS results in England Annex A - Technical notes Blank Page Blank Page