Early learning and childcare expansion programme: evaluation strategy

Footnotes

1. McAdams, R et al. (2017). Evaluability assessment of the expansion of early learning and childcare.

2. The shorthand 'parents' is used hereafter: this is meant to include any principal carers of children.

3. HM Treasury. (2020). Magenta Book: Central Government guidance on evaluation.

4. Funded early learning and childcare - mygov.scot.

5. Scottish Government. (2014). One Scotland: The Government's programme for Scotland 2014-15.

6. Scottish Government, (2016). A Blueprint for 2020: Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland Consultation.

7. Scottish Government, (2017). A Blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland - 2017-2018 Action Plan.

8. Scottish Government. (2018). Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Delivery Trials: Evaluation.

9. Scottish Government. (2017). A Blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland - ELC Expansion Planning Guidance for Local Authorities.

10. Scottish Government. (2018). A blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland – ELC Service Model for 2020: Consultation Paper.

11. Early learning and childcare expansion.

12. Coronavirus (COVID-19) – impact on education: Deputy First Minister speech, 19 March 2020.

13. Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Modification) (No. 2) Revocation Order 2020 (S.S.I. 2020-136; The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Modification) Order 2021 (legislation.gov.uk).

14. Funding Follows the Child and the National Standard for Early Learning and Childcare Providers: interim guidance - update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

15. The Provision of Early Learning and Childcare (Specified Children) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2020.

16. Early learning and childcare access in a deferred year: joint implementation plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

17. Scottish Government. (2021). A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22.

18. Children and Young People | National Performance Framework.

19. Every child, every chance: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2018-2022; Best Start, Bright Futures: tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022 to 2026.

20. Scottish Government. A blueprint for 2020 - action plan, p3.

21. McAdams R et al. Evaluability assessment.

22. Scottish Government. (2016). Implementing Early Learning and Childcare under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014: Progress Update; Scottish Government. (2017). The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare: Evaluation Report.

23. Audit Scotland. Early Learning and Childcare: follow up.

24. Scottish Government. (2019). Tackling child poverty: first year progress report - Annex A – Child poverty evaluation strategy; Scottish Government. (2022). Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022-2026 - annex 2: child poverty evaluation strategy - updated.

25. Financial Sustainability Health Check of the Childcare Sector in Scotland: Analysis and Evidence.

26. Scottish Government. (2020). Survey of childcare providers on impact of reopening guidance.

27. Scottish Government. (2021). Financial sustainability health check of the childcare sector in Scotland; Scottish Government. (2021). Financial sustainability health check of the childcare sector: analysis and evidence.

28. Scottish Government. (2022). Coronavirus (COVID-19): Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children's Issues - children, schools, early learning and childcare settings - evidence summary.

29. For example: Scottish Government. Coronavirus (COVID-19): Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children's Issues - children, schools, early learning and childcare settings - evidence summary - gov.scot (www.gov.scot); Public Health Scotland. (2022). Ensuring our future: addressing the impact of COVID-19 on children, young people and their families (scotphn.net); Scottish Government. (2021). Coronavirus (COVID-19): children, young people and families - evidence summary - June 2021; Public Health Scotland. COVID-19 Early Years Resilience and Impact Survey.

30. Scottish Government. (2021). Coronavirus (COVID-19) support in low income households: evaluation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

31. Scottish Government. Coronavirus (COVID-19): Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children's Issues - children, schools, early learning and childcare settings - evidence summary - gov.scot (www.gov.scot); COVID-19 Early Years Resilience and Impact Survey.

32. Public Health Scotland. (2020). The impact of COVID on children and young people: 2 to 4 year olds.

33. Public Health Scotland. COVID-19 wider impacts.

34. Scottish Government. (2021). Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2020/21.

35. Scottish Government. Child Social and Physical Development | National Performance Framework.

36. Child Material Deprivation | National Performance Framework; Scottish Government. (2021). Tackling child poverty: third year progress report – Annex A measurement framework.

37. Scottish Government. Tackling child poverty: measurement framework.

38. Improvement Service - ELC Delivery Progress Reports.

39. Improvement Service. (2018). Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Delivery Progress.

40. After April 2022 the Improvement Service will continue to collect data, though it is anticipated that the format of the collection and the level of detail collected will change. This is currently under discussion.

41. Daycare of children is defined as a service that provides care for children on non-domestic premises for a total of more than two hours a day and on at least six days per year. This includes nurseries, crèches, out of school care and playgroups. These services can be run by the public, private or voluntary sector and require to be registered with the Care Inspectorate.

42. Statistics and analysis (careinspectorate.com).

43. ELC workers are registered with SSSC under the section 'workers in day care of children's services' as managers, practitioners or support workers. This excludes qualified teachers – who are required to register with the General Teaching Council of Scotland – and childminders – who are individually registered with, and inspected by, the Care Inspectorate.

44. Defined by SSSC as a subset of day care of children services that receive Scottish Government funding to provide free childcare hours for eligible children as part of the entitlement to 600 hours per year under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.

45. SSSC. (2021). Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2020 Workforce Data; SSSC. (2021). The Children's Services Workforce 2019 Tables.

46. Early learning and childcare statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

47. SCMA. (2021). ELC Audit 2021.

48. Scottish Government. (2021). Financial sustainability health check of the childcare sector: analysis and evidence.

49. Scottish Government. (2021). Early learning and childcare providers - local authority funding and support: overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

50. Scottish Government. (2022). Childminding workforce trends qualitative research report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

51. Scottish Government. (2019). Scottish Household Survey 2018: annual report; Scottish Government. (2020). Scottish Household Survey: childcare topic report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

52. In March 2020, part way through the 2020 SHS fieldwork, the survey moved from being conducted face-to-face to a contact free push to telephone/video approach. This has considerably reduced the sample size for the 2020 survey which, in turn, has significantly limited the analysis that can be produced for the questions on childcare and ELC, as these are already asked to a sub-set of the sample. It is anticipated that a full analysis will be possible for the 2021 data.

53. As highlighted in the previous footnote there are limitations on what can be produced from the 2020 survey as the sample size was not large enough to provide data on these indicators.

54. Scottish Government. (2018). Parents' views and use of early learning and childcare: report.

55. Scottish Government. (2022). Decisions influencing early learning and childcare use: understanding social policies and social contexts.

56. Scottish Government. (2021). Early learning and childcare: statutory guidance - July 2021.

57. Other help with childcare costs - mygov.scot.

58. Scobie G and Scott E. (2017). Rapid evidence review: Childcare quality and children's outcomes. NHS Health Scotland.

59. Scottish Government. (2018). Funding follows the child and the national standard for early learning and childcare providers: principles and practice.

60. Registration with SSSC is qualification-based, however, in most categories individuals can register before achieving the necessary award. In these cases, they are given a 'qualification condition' which means that they must achieve the qualification within a specified period (usually five years). The SSSC registration data does not include GTCS registered teachers or other professions not registered with SSSC.

61. Quality framework for ELC services (careinspectorate.com).

62. In terms of identifying the services that have declined or improved after being evaluated using the new framework, the comparison in Table 4 would be used. For example, if a service previously had a grade 4 for the Quality of Environment theme and they were then assessed at a grade 3 for the 'How good is our setting?' Key Question, they would be counted as a service that had fallen below the good/very good/excellent standard for that Key Question.

63. HMIs will use QIs from How good is our early learning and childcare?: QI 1.3 Leadership of change, QI 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment, QI 3.2 Securing children's progress, and QI 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion. These QIs will feed directly into the evidence base for the National Improvement Framework. In addition, inspections will incorporate themes from other QIs to ensure inspectors continue to capture the evidence needed to promote improvement and provide evidence to inform national policy development. The themes used during the inspection are the Learning and developmental pathway for the nursery class or early years setting and QI 2.7 Partnerships in evaluating the impact of parental engagement. Inspectors also continue to have a focus on safeguarding in every inspection.

64. Current Census data can be broken down by type of settings, registration stage, whether children have English as an additional language, ASN, children with a support plan, and by local authority.

65. Early learning and childcare statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

66. It should be noted that, based on analysis of the 2018 data, some minor changes have been made to the Childcare/ELC questions between 2019 and 2020 to improve the data, particularly to improve the clarity of questions on use of funded ELC.

67. A 2017 report on Drivers and barriers to uptake of ELC among two year olds presented baseline findings from qualitative research examining factors affecting take up of funded ELC for two-year-olds.

68. Scottish Government. (2019). Scottish study of early learning and childcare: phase 1 report; Scottish Government (2020). Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare - ELC leavers: phase 2 report; Scottish Government. (2020). Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare - three-year-olds report.

69. Scottish Government (2012). The Scottish Child Health Programme: Guidance on the 27-30 month child health review, Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

70. Bedford, H., Walton, S., Ahn, J. (2013). Measures of Child Development: A review, London: Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics, UCL Institute of Child Health.

71. Scottish Government. (2018). Parents' views and use of early learning and childcare: report.

72. Stephen, C. and Wilkinson, J.E. (1995). 'Assessing the Quality of Provision in Community Nurseries', Early Child Development and Care. 108: 83-98.

73. See Melhuish, E. & Gardiner, J. (2018). Study of Early Education and Development (SEED): Impact Study on Early Education Use and Child Outcomes up to age four years Research Report.

74. Care Inspectorate staff attended training with academic colleagues on how to use the ITERS-3 and completed their first observation in pairs to ensure consistency of scoring.

75. Bradshaw P, Lewis G and Hughes T. (2014). Growing up in Scotland: Characteristics of pre-school provision and their association with child outcomes.

76. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (2016). Creating an anti-poverty childcare system; Institute for Fiscal Studies. (2016). Does free childcare help parents work? Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs.org.uk).

77. What is wellbeing? - What Works Wellbeing.

78. Wellbeing (SHANARRI) - Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

79. Scottish Government. (2021). Perceptions of the impact of childminding services on child, parent and family outcomes: research findings.

80. Scottish Government. (2022). Decisions influencing early learning and childcare use: understanding social policies and social contexts.

81. Scottish Government. (2019). Scottish study of early learning and childcare: phase 1 report.

82. Scottish Government. (2020). Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare - ELC leavers: phase 2 report.

83. Scottish Government. (2020)., Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare - three-year-olds (phase 3): report.