To the point - What about outcomes?

There was some good news in last week's Ofsted report: more than
three quarters of childcare providers are now good or outstanding - more
than ever before.

But the news on how well children themselves are doing was less heartening. The poor performance of the least well off kids attracted the ire of the chief inspector and most of the coverage, but let's not be fooled that all the problems lie there. Overall results are worrying too: just over half of children achieve a good level of development at the end of the foundation stage. That is too few.

Ofsted changed the way it measures good for this last report, so it's no longer possible to compare outcomes over time, but we can compare them across places. That gives us some sense of how much better we could all do just by matching the best. The difference across local authorities is startling. Just over a third of children on free school meals achieve a good standard of development nationally. In Greenwich and Lewisham, however, six out of ten make it to good and there are seven local authorities where at least half of the poorest kids achieve a good standard of development.