Here is our selection of topical and relevant news stories about
children and children’s services. 

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Jan Feb Jul Aug Sep

Free childcare for families to get back in to work

Low-income families are to be given free childcare so they can go to training courses and get back in to work.  The £75m three-year programme, announced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, will help 50,000 families where one parent is working and the second wants to go back in to work.

As well as childcare costs of up to £175 a week per child or £205 in London, the cash will pay for help from the Learning and Skills Council to find and attend training courses.

Workless families will also be entitled to help if they can't get support from other sources.  The programme will start in 67 local authority areas with the highest number of eligible families in January 2009, and will then be rolled out to all local authorities the following September.  Children's minister Beverley Hughes said: "This will help lift families out of poverty by enabling them to gain the skills they need to enter the workplace."

Children & Young People Now
8 September 2008

Quality of pre-school affects outcomes at 11

Going to a good pre-school helps improve children's outcomes in English and maths by the time they are 11, new research has found.

 The study, the latest in the Effective Pre-School and Primary Education Project (EPPE), showed achievement in both maths and English by the age of 11 was greater where a child had attended a good quality pre-school.  However, children who went to poor quality pre-schools showed no difference in outcomes to children who had not been to pre-school at all.  And children who went to average quality pre-schools showed no difference in outcomes in English to children who had not been to pre-school.

"This is a change from previous findings, reported at age five years, which showed that all pre-school experience had positive effects, regardless of the quality," the report said.

It also found pupils from non-disadvantaged backgrounds gained more from going to high quality pre-schools than children from disadvantaged backgrounds.  A child's learning environment at home was also found to be one of the most important factors in high achievement at school later on.  The EPPE project began in 1996 and followed more than 3,000 children from age three to look at the effect of nurseries, pre-schools and other early years settings on children's progress and development at primary school.

Source http://www.cypnow.co.uk/bulletins/InPractice/news/842617/?DCMP=EMC-InPractice

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