Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare: ELC Leavers (Phase 2) Report - Updated 2021

Footnotes

1. https://www.gov.scot/news/early-learning-and-childcare-expansion-1/

2. Income adjusted for the number of adults and children in the household, following OECD guidelines

3. Scottish Government (2016) A Blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland – Quality Action Plan, Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

4. More information on the eligibility criteria for two-year-olds is available at: https://www.mygov.scot/childcare-costs-help/funded-early-learning-and-childcare/

5. NHS Health Scotland (2017) Evaluability assessment of the expansion of early learning and childcare: http://www.healthscotland.scot/publications/evaluability-assessment-of-the-expansion-of-early-learning-and-childcare.

6. Broadly, family wellbeing in the context of ELC is considered to be a combination of children and parents' health and well-being, and the ability of parents to undertake suitable parenting and activities that may contribute to the long-term prosperity of the family unit.

7. https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-study-early-learning-childcare-phase-1-report/

8. Further information on these instruments is provided in the relevant section of the report.

9. Those aged above 5 years 3 months were those who had deferred entry into primary school.

10. Note that inspectors were acting as observers and not in their regulatory capacity, and used a different tool in their observations than would be used for a formal quality grading.

11. Further information on these instruments is provided in the relevant section of the report.

12. The survey weight adjusts the data to compensate for oversampling of settings in deprived areas as well as non-response bias related to the size of the setting, the local authority and the age and gender of the child

13. For whom a parent / carer questionnaire was completed

14. The most deprived quintile, according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

15. Including single foster parents and single grandparent households

16. Including parents, grandparents, older siblings and other adults

17. Equivalised household income adjusts household income according to the typical income requirements for the number of people in the household. The OECD adjustment has been used in this case, where household income is divided by a household size factor, which is the sum of 0.67 for the first adult in the household, 0.33 for each subsequent adult or child aged 14 or above, and 0.20 for each child aged 13 or below. Cut points for the equivalized income deciles have been taken from a national survey of people in households in Scotland, the Scottish Health Survey 2018.

18. The methodology used for calculating equivalised income does not allow larger households to be placed in the top income decile, even if they reported an income in the top income bracket of greater than £78,000 per annum. The low figure for the top decile (1%) is therefore potentially an artefact of the methodology, rather than a reflection of the true proportion of high-income households in the sample.

19. Source: https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ethnicity-identity-language-and-religion

20. Recorded in the keyworker questionnaire as at least 15 hours of government or local authority funding per week. Distinctions between government and local authority (referred) funding have not been made in the analysis.

21. Depending on the setting, the annual statutory entitlement of 600 hours worked out as between 15 and 16.25 hours per week. Some children received discretionary funding from their local authority on top of this, while others did not take their full allocation.

22. Calculated from parent survey data alone, and hence slightly different from figures shown in Table 1. The difference is further exaggerated as Table 1 includes additional childcare only where a positive number of hours per week are mentioned. Some respondents reported using particular forms of childcare but for zero hours a week, possibly because of the lack of a regular pattern.

23. The total for all children includes formal childcare across multiple settings, hence differ slightly from those quoted earlier taken from the keyworker questionnaire only.

24. The 55% reported here differs from the 53% reported in Figure 3 because some parents stated that they used additional childcare but did not report using any of the types of childcare listed in Table 2. Both figures are a correct interpretation of the data. One reason for the difference may be that respondents answered the first question including ad hoc arrangements for childcare but reported zero hours a week for all of the listed types of childcare because there was no regular pattern.

25. It is not possible to give an exact figure, as "none" was not an explicit answer option. 9% of parents ticked none of the options, but we cannot say whether this was because they had not used any form of childcare or because they had chosen not to answer the question. Subsequent analysis of this question is around those who had mentioned at least one form of childcare.

26. Mode of transport was not specified.

27. Any settlement of less than 10,000 people

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

29. 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.

30. See, for example, Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2017/18: https://www.gov.scot/publications/achievement-curriculum-excellence-cfe-levels-2017-18/

31. Matheny Jr, A.P., Wachs, T.D, Ludwig, J.L. and Phillips, K. (1995) "Bringing order out of chaos: Psychometric characteristics of the confusion, hubbub and order scale", Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 16, pp. 429-444.

32. 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: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/738725/SEED_Impact_Age_4_Report_September_2018.pdf

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

34. 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.

35. Freeflow play allows children to move freely indoors and outdoors as they please.

36. Those aged above 5 years 3 months were those who had deferred entry into primary school.

37. Only one local authority with eligible settings (delivering 600 hours) was unable to participate. One other local authority did not participate because all their ELC settings were already providing 1140 hours of ELC.

38. Note that inspectors were acting as observers and not in their regulatory capacity, and used a different tool in their observations than would be used for a formal quality grading.

39. Further information on these instruments is provided in the relevant section of the report.