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In Ipswich, 116 early childhood professionals from 66 nurseries have been trained as Child Development Champions, learning techniques to support children's language development, and strategies to support parents to continue their child's learning at home. In Cambridgeshire, early years settings and schools can access a grant of up to £10,000, to be spent on recruitment incentives including driving lessons, childcare vouchers and a rental deposit. In Derby, early years settings in eight priority wards can access free support and early years training through Elklan.
What these and many other projects have in common is that they are funded by money from the Government's three-year, £72 million Opportunity Areas scheme. The first six Opportunity Areas were revealed in 2016, following a report from the Social Mobility Commission identifying ‘social mobility coldspots’ – places where educational attainment and job prospects were poor. The initial areas were West Somerset, Norwich, Blackpool, Scarborough, Derby and Oldham. In 2017, six further areas were added: Bradford, Doncaster, Fenland & East Cambridgeshire, Hastings, Ipswich and Stoke-on-Trent.
After criticism that none of the areas were located in the North East, the Government said it would divert £24 million of funding for school improvement and teacher training to the area.
Local areas identify their own needs, priorities and targets (see Further reading). Nine have identified early years as a priority. Many are harnessing other forms of funding to support their work, including the Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund, the Strategic School Innovation Fund and the Essential Life Skills programme. Department for Education staff work alongside the Opportunity Areas in local delivery teams, as well as providing central support. Each area has formed a partnership board which brings together a range of professionals such as early years, education, local authorities, health, business, police and the voluntary sector. Sub-groups focus on particular topics – an evaluation report published last October found the early years and school-focused sub-groups were making the most progress.
In Blackpool, the National Lottery Community Fund-supported Better Start programme has taken advantage of the Opportunity Area funding to roll out some of its evidence-based practice to older age groups. ‘I sit on the board of the Opportunity Area,’ says Merle Davies, director of Blackpool's Centre for Early Childhood Development and leader of the town's Better Start programme. ‘When the Opportunity Area came to Blackpool, because there was already such an involvement in early years, we suggested the board focus on Reception upwards. We work jointly, make joint bids, and there is consistency around areas such as staff training and literacy approaches. Anything in early years is followed through so parents and children don't see a difference.’
While the Better Start and Opportunity Area programmes work well together, one downside is the short-term nature of the latter, says Davies. ‘Better Start is a ten-year programme so we are able to take a more long-term approach,’ she says. ‘We have different timescales. If the Opportunity Area had the same length of funding, they could have done so much more.’
‘Opportunity Areas are a three-year programme and took at least a year to get organised,’ says Jo Hutchinson, director for social mobility and vulnerable learners at the Education Policy Institute.
Criticism
In July, Education Committee chair Robert Halfon wrote to the then-education secretary Damian Hinds to air concerns about Opportunity Areas, following an inquiry into the scheme. ‘We are not convinced that creating a new structure is the best use of that resource or that sufficient value for money is created simply by bringing stakeholders together,’ he wrote. ‘The £2 million spent on administration costs for the programme could far better be spent on the front line, and an additional structure creates confusion in the system.’
However, many of those working in Opportunity Areas believe partnership working is a key element. Sarah Read is head of early years and consultancy at Action for Children, which is working with Norwich's early years team to support cross-sector partnerships. ‘For an initiative like this to work you need everyone on board,’ she says. Action for Children is bringing schools, Children's Centres, childminders and PVI providers together to support a flexible approach to the funded hours, allowing children to transition easily from one setting to another.
Many of the early years priorities set out by the Opportunity Areas appear to have been driven by current Government concerns, such as closing the word gap. Communication and language stands out, with seven areas focusing on related areas such as literacy, communication, language and reading. Three are looking at parental involvement.
‘The time element has constrained the programme: areas have to pick and choose what they look at when there may be many other things that could be relevant,’ says Ms Hutchinson. ‘A holistic approach would bring together all the services a child could possibly need on the same site, as Pen Green Children's Centre does, for example, rather than saying “the two distinct problems are communication and parental involvement”.’
However, it seems that many areas are taking a flexible approach. In Norwich, for example, improving the flexibility of the funded hours may not initially seem to impact literacy, but when settings work together to gain a rounded picture of a child they can offer consistent, personalised programmes of learning, says Ms Read. ‘It's down to the knowledge and skills of the team working in the Opportunity Area, they know the families and children and can see the wider impact an approach might have,’ she says. ‘They are the right people to be making these decisions.’
Stella Ziolkowski, NDNA's director of quality and training, says workforce issues need to be at the heart of Opportunity Area support. ‘We know that in these areas of disadvantage, there are not enough staff qualified to teacher or graduate level when ideally there should be more in order to support the children to reach their potential,’ she says. ‘The sector is really needing much more support for training, specifically around language, maths development and home learning. One point of the DfE's Workforce Strategy was to support practitioners in areas of deprivation. Unfortunately, that has not come to fruition.’
Early years outcomes
An Education Policy Institute review of the impact of the Opportunity Areas published in July has shown a mixed picture for the early years. Overall attainment has increased between 2017 and 2018 in early years in at least half of the Opportunity Areas, although it typically remains below the national average. In Derby the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers at age five fell from 5.1 months to 4.3 months between 2017 and 2018, and there was also a slight decrease in Doncaster, Hastings and Oldham. However, in seven areas the gap between the most disadvantaged and their more advantaged peers actually increased at this age.
The EPI's Ms Hutchinson says it is important to note that the first wave of Opportunity Areas had only published their plans for intervention just under a year before the 2018 results, and the second wave around half a school year. She also points out some areas may have eschewed a ‘quick fix’. ‘You make the decision either to start working on long-term issues, but know you won't necessarily demonstrate progress at the end of the three years, or on quick fixes that might not be the highest priority things to fix,’ she says. ‘A mixed picture may be what you should expect from a programme where each area is doing something different.’
Mr Halfon's letter also highlighted concerns around how the programme intends to spread good practice to other areas. Ms Ziolkowski agrees that this is an issue. ‘We need to learn more about what has been happening in each of these programmes and whether they have improved outcomes for children there and, if so, how they can be rolled out nationally,’ she says.
Ms Hutchinson is unsure whether current evaluation plans will meet this need. ‘The DfE's evaluation plans are not set up to compare areas that have changed something with similar areas where they have not changed, for example,’ she says. ‘It is disappointing that we will never quite know what works best.’
Opportunity Area funding will come to an end in 2020. The then-children and families minister Nadhim Zahawi told the Education Select Committee in May he wished the programme could have been longer, and that he hoped to convince the Treasury to extend it. Since then, however, Zahawi has moved from education to become minister for business and industry.
It was hoped the recent spending review might extend the Opportunity Area funding, but it is still not clear where some of the money mentioned in that review might end up, says Ms Hutchinson. ‘Will that pot of funding be used to continue the Opportunity Areas, or does Boris Johnson have different ideas from his predecessors?’ she asks.