Early Years Education, Development and Care

Speech delivered on Thu 8th Feb 2007

Today's debate is opportune and relevant, and I am grateful to Fiona Hyslop for securing it. There is increasing recognition of the seminal importance in a child's life of what happens in their early, formative years; I do not disagree with some of the points Fiona Hyslop made in that regard. A child's early years are a time of rapid development and have a key role to play in establishing their future health and well-being. The basis for children's physical health, emotional well-being and cognitive skills and abilities is established in the first few years of life. That is why the Executive has placed such a high priority on early years as a cohesive part of the educational system in Scotland.

Today's debate is really about what will happen in the next session. I have no doubt that all the parties will seek to lay out their stalls and develop the agenda. I hope that the debate will not be marred by simplistic solutions to a complex challenge. This is an area in which major advances in provision need to be matched-as they have been under the Executive-by major advances in resource.

Despite what Fiona Hyslop said, the Scottish Executive has made enormous advances. Sometimes, we forget just how substantial progress has been. Provision since 2002 of a free nursery place for every three and four-year-old is a substantial achievement. Such places are now taken up by 96 per cent of three-year-olds and 99 per cent of four-year-olds. The Executive has provided support for capacity building in the private and voluntary sector. Local authorities have been given the resource to raise the advisory floor to £1,250 a child, and £5 million per annum to support workforce development. Since 1999, £30.8 million has been made available for workforce development more generally.

There has been huge investment in sure start Scotland, which is a major driver for change, to provide new and improved services and support joint working and child care partnerships to develop more cohesive services. Providing cohesive services is a significant part of the challenge that we face in this area. Funding for sure start Scotland has risen to £59.9 million in 2007-08. New legislation may not be required if the system is placed on the right foundations. Child care strategy funding has risen from £19.25 million in 2003-04 to £44.256 million in 2006-07. In some areas, it has been used to fund an affordable full-day service for three to four-year-olds, supplemented by initiatives such as the sitter service. The results of that investment are there to be seen.

As Fiona Hyslop indicated, we have made significant progress in refining our approach as knowledge and understanding of child development deepens. Pilot provision for vulnerable two-year-olds, cross-cutting support for parents and families, nurture classes, backing for improving parental skills and reading-with-parent schemes constitute an exciting and developing agenda. The challenge is to identify and spread good practice and good ideas across the sector. There is increasing recognition of the importance of play and communication skills and of parental bonding. Provision of child care is not just a matter of numbers or hours-the quality and focus of provision are also important.

High-quality provision is key to ensuring that children get the most of the opportunities in pre-school education. Key to ensuring high quality provision is high-quality staff. Teachers have and will continue to have an important role to play in delivering pre-school education. Unlike the SNP, we do not set things on high-we must use that valuable resource in the way that best meets local needs. Pre-school education is delivered by a variety of providers across the sector. That diversity of provision, which parents welcome, means that we must allow authorities to decide how best to use their teaching resource locally. In some areas, that may mean having a teacher in the room all the time; in others, a peripatetic team of supporting teachers may be the best solution. We should not apply from the centre too rigid a straitjacket on the deployment of teachers.

There are many more early years workers than teachers in the sector. As Fiona Hyslop said, in August we published the report of the national review of the early years and child care workforce, and the Executive's response to it. The review's proposals include developing leadership in the early years and child care sector, the creation of a career structure for the workforce, and improving support for partner providers. All those proposals are aimed at improving quality of provision across the sector in a way that recognises the diversity of provision that exists.

We are also making progress on exciting new developments for the early years curriculum. The curriculum for excellence programme will produce a curriculum for children from three to 18. Moving to a single curriculum that starts at age three, with the early stage of the revised curriculum going to the end of primary 1, has the radical potential to extend the child-centred, active learning approaches that are used in nursery into the early years of primary. That is extremely important. Good work is being done in many schools and other establishments across Scotland in that regard. From experience across the sector, we know that transitions are always difficult. Continuing the active learning style of nursery into primary 1 will make the transition from pre-school and nursery to school easier. It is vital that the eagerness and enthusiasm for learning that young children have in early years settings are maintained throughout their school careers.

Early years services sit within a wider set of services for young children, many of which are delivered in a holistic, integrated way. The challenge is to do more of that. The Executive has already recognised that the time to refresh the strategic direction is coming, but we should recognise that much has been and is being achieved to push forward the quality agenda. Action is about more than strategy documents. The SNP motion seems to me to be fairly shallow and insubstantial in understanding and meeting the challenges that I have described, although I accept that Fiona Hyslop raised a number of other issues in her speech.

Early education and early years services are crucial. Substantial progress has been made in recent years. We recognise that there are major challenges ahead-on the curriculum, on the workforce, on meeting parents' and children's needs, and on recognising developmental needs. The Scottish Executive is focused on that agenda and has a strong and proven commitment to early years education and services, evidenced by the action that it has taken over the years of its control in Scotland.

I move amendment 5549.2, to leave out from "that there needs" to end and insert:

"welcomes the significant increase in pre-school education entitlement that has been delivered since 1999; recognises that teachers have, and will continue to have, a major role to play in delivering pre-school education; recognises the vital role that qualified early years practitioners play in delivering early years services and welcomes proposals to deliver greater professionalism and improved career pathways for early years staff; welcomes proposals under A Curriculum for Excellence to introduce more active learning into early primary education; recognises that early years strategy needs to reflect these developments, and recognises that the Scottish Executive's investment in education has rebuilt the foundations of a successful education system in Scotland".