Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare: Three-year-olds (Phase 3) Report - Updated 2021

Introduction

Background

This report outlines findings from the surveys conducted as part of the third phase of the Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare (SSELC), the research project established to evaluate the expansion of early learning and childcare (ELC) in Scotland. 

The ELC Expansion Programme

The current expansion programme follows a commitment from Scottish Government to almost double the hours of funded ELC for all three- and four-year-olds, and eligible two-year-olds, to 1140 per year^[1]. This planned increase follows a number of smaller expansions in the past decade. Parents and carers in Scotland have had the opportunity to use funded ELC since 2002 initially for 412.5 hours per year which was then increased to 475 hours in 2007. In 2014 the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 increased funded ELC to 600 hours per year for all three- and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds who are looked after, the subject of a kinship care order or a guardianship order, or whose parents are in receipt of one or more qualifying benefits^[2].

The expansion of funded ELC in Scotland was due to take effect from August 2020. Implementation of the statutory duty to deliver 1140 has, however, been paused due to the wide-ranging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A timetable for the reinstatement of the duty will be agreed by the Scottish Government and local authorities once the full implications of the pandemic are understood.  

The expansion to 1140 hours of government-funded ELC provision is intended to support children across Scotland, particularly the most disadvantaged. This change seeks to achieve three principal outcomes: 

1. Children's development improves and the attainment gap narrows;

2. Parents' opportunities to take up work, training or study increase; and

3. Family wellbeing improves through enhanced nurture and support.

Local authorities are responsible for implementation and delivery of funded ELC to their local communities. They have flexibility to determine the most appropriate way to phase in the expanded entitlement in their local area as they build capacity. 

The Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare

The SSELC has been designed to evaluate whether the ELC expansion programme has achieved the above objectives by measuring outcomes for children and parents receiving the existing entitlement and comparing them to those who receive the increased entitlement. The overarching evaluation questions are based on the Theory of Change set out in the Evaluability Assessment published by NHS Health Scotland in 2017^[3].  This Theory of Change is based on the principles of Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC). Existing sources of information and reporting processes – for example National Statistics publications such as the ELC Census and Scottish Household Survey, and Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland inspection data and thematic inspection focus areas – will be used alongside the SSELC to consider the contribution and effectiveness of the ELC programme. 

Specifically, the SSELC has the following overarching aims:

• To assess the extent to which the expansion from 600 hours to 1140 hours has improved outcomes for children, particularly those at risk of disadvantage, between the ages of two and five.
• To assess the extent to which the expansion from 600 hours to 1140 hours has closed the gap in child development outcomes between children who are most and least advantaged between the ages of two and five.
• To assess the extent to which the expansion from 600 hours to 1140 hours has improved outcomes for parents, particularly parents of children at risk of disadvantage.
• To assess the extent to which the expansion from 600 hours to 1140 hours has increased family wellbeing, particularly for families in disadvantaged circumstances^[4].

To evaluate the impact of the expansion programme, the study has been designed to collect data across several phases over around five years from 2018. Phases 1, 2 and 3 have collected baseline data on the outcomes of children accessing 600 hours of funded ELC and their parents:

Phase 1 – November 2018

• Data collected on eligible two-year-olds as they begin ELC

Phase 2 – May/June 2019

• Data collected on four- and five-year-olds as they leave ELC to begin Primary 1

Phase 3 – November 2019

• Follow-up with the same group of eligible two-year-olds after one year in ELC
• Data collected on three-year-olds as they begin ELC

Phases 4, 5 and 6 will collect data on the outcomes of children accessing 1140 hours of funded ELC and their parents.  Dates proposed for follow-up data collection prior to the COVID-19 pandemic are shown below:

Phase 4 – November 2022

• Data collected on eligible two-year-olds as they begin ELC

Phase 5 – May/June 2023

• Data collected on four- and five-year-olds as they leave ELC to begin Primary 1

Phase 6 – November 2023

• Follow-up with the same group of eligible two-year-olds after one year in ELC
• Data collected on three-year-olds as they begin ELC

However, the timetable for completion of the follow-up phases of the SSELC will be affected by the delay in the statutory duty to deliver 1140 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an updated evaluation timetable will be confirmed in due course.

Findings from Phase 1 were published in August 2019^[5] and from Phase 2 in August 2020^[6]. The focus of the third phase being reported here (Phase 3) was to follow-up children who had taken part at Phase 1 after one year in ELC (the "Eligible 2s"), as well as to collect data on a separate, nationally-representative group of children of the same age (the "Comparator 3s"). Data were gathered on children aged between three years and three years six months who were receiving 600 hours of funded ELC provision. 

To be eligible for government-funded provision of ELC when aged two years, children must be in households in receipt of certain state benefits, or be looked after or in care.^[7] Local authorities can use their discretion to fund additional places for two-year-olds in situations where the child has additional needs, or the family requires extra support. These criteria mean that most of the children included in the "Eligible 2s" cohort were from lower income households. Those children included in this cohort who were not living in lower income households were receiving funded ELC either because they were looked after or in care, or through local authorities using their discretion to offer funded or subsidised ELC over and above the legal entitlement to provide support for a wider range of families. 

The aims of Phase 3 were:

• To gather robust data on child outcomes for children who had taken part at Phase 1 (the "Eligible 2s") after one year of receiving 600 hours of funded ELC provision.
• To gather robust baseline data on child outcomes for a separate nationally-representative sample of three-year-olds who were receiving 600 hours of funded ELC provision (the "Comparator 3s").
• To gather robust baseline data on parent outcomes linked to the above two samples of three-year-olds.

The results from Phase 3 will contribute to a baseline for assessing the impact of expanded ELC provision that will be covered in later phases of the evaluation. In particular, the study design will enable an assessment of whether the gap in child development outcomes has decreased following the expansion in hours. Consequently, this report's focus is mainly descriptive, providing a general summary of findings from the data collected and identifying some basic relationships between variables. This includes discussion of how things have changed after one year of ELC for the Eligible 2s and their families, using data from Phase 1 as well as Phase 3, and a comparison of outcomes for the two separate samples at Phase 3. The report is not intended to provide a detailed consideration of the relationship between use of funded ELC and child or parent outcomes.

The data used in this report cover a wide range of parental and child outcomes. The specific outcomes of interest were:

Child 

• Social, emotional and behavioural development
• Cognitive and language development
• Physical and mental health and wellbeing
• Home learning activities

Parent and family

• Uptake of employment, training or study
• Physical and mental health, and health behaviours
• Parenting self-efficacy and home environment
• Engagement in their child's learning and development

With regards to information about the child, developmental outcomes are presented using data from ELC keyworker observations which utilised the Ages and Stages (ASQ) and Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ) Questionnaires^[8]. These are age-relevant versions of questionnaires which are used throughout Scotland by Health Visitors to capture information on parental concerns about their young children in relation to development. Parent-report information was also collected on the presence of developmental risk factors – such as sleep patterns and breastfeeding – and on the child's general health and long-term illnesses. 

Finally, the report explores how parents use their ELC provision, presenting information about funding and perceived accessibility as well as details on their use of other forms of childcare. 

By providing the necessary baseline figures for the evaluation of the ELC expansion programme in Scotland, this report is an integral component of the overall research project. Although the results presented here are primarily descriptive, with detailed analysis beyond the scope of the report, these baseline figures will be vital for determining later whether this significant policy programme has delivered the outcomes as intended. 

Methods

Follow up of Eligible 2s

At Phase 1, data were collected on 586 children, including 574 for whom keyworker observations were completed, and 428 for whom a parent/carer questionnaire was completed. In August 2019, settings were contacted to remind them of the undertaking to recontact parents/carers one year after the initial data collection exercise. Settings were asked which of the Phase 1 children were still in attendance, and, if any had moved to another setting, the name and contact details for the new setting were requested.

Of the 586 children who took part at Phase 1, 416 were believed to be attending the same setting^[9] or another setting which took part at Phase 1 (139 separate settings); 133 were traced to new settings (97 settings) and 37 could not be traced (mostly recorded as not attending ELC in Scotland).

Sampling of Comparator 3s

The sample of Comparator 3s was drawn from settings which took part at Phase 2 or indicated that they would be happy to take part at Phase 3 even if they were not able to take part at Phase 2. This was for three main reasons:

• As most of these settings had previously participated, or attended an information session at Phase 2, efficiencies were made by not repeating information sessions for these settings.
• Similarly, most of the settings involved at Phase 2 had also been observed by the Care Inspectorate and assessed using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-3), which was designed for evaluating ELC provision for children from age two and a half to five. Hence further efficiencies were made by not repeating this exercise.
• The achieved sample at Phase 2 was nationally representative of four- and five- year-olds attending ELC settings^[10]. All of the Phase 2 settings also catered for children from the age of three, and the distribution of children across settings was similar for both age groups. Hence with small adjustments to the weighting of data, the Phase 3 sample can be said to be nationally representative of three-year-olds attending ELC settings.

At Phase 2, settings in deprived areas were deliberately oversampled. This was not an aim of the Phase 3 sample, so proportionally fewer settings from deprived areas were selected at Phase 3, with the aim of achieving a nationally representative sample.

The sample consisted of children aged between 3 years and 3 years 6 months who had started attending the setting since August 2019 and who were receiving up to 600 hours of government-funded or local-authority-funded ELC provision, and the parents of those children. The ages of these children matched the ages of the Eligible 2s cohort. Up to 10 children were selected within each sampled setting. More details of the sampling process are provided in Appendix B.

Data collection

Data were gathered on children in the cohort via two methods: a survey of parents/carers and a survey of the children's ELC keyworkers (primarily to measure child development). Data about the settings were also available, including observations of ELC settings attended by sampled children at Phase 1 and Phase 2 carried out by Care Inspectorate inspectors^[11]. 

Parents were recruited by ELC staff and provided with information about the study before being asked to complete a paper self-administered questionnaire that collected a wide range of information about themselves, their child and their household. Parents were also asked for their permission for the child's keyworker to complete a questionnaire about the child's development. This largely consisted of the Ages and Stages (ASQ) and Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ)^[12] questionnaires but also collected information about the number of hours the child attended the ELC setting in the previous week.

Fieldwork was conducted between October and December 2019. For the Eligible 2s, questionnaires were sent to 236 settings for a total of 549 of the 586 children who took part at Phase 1. 

• At least one questionnaire was returned for 391 children, including 376 keyworker questionnaires and 269 parent questionnaires; 254 children had both questionnaires completed
• 372 children had keyworker questionnaires for both Phases – 65% of the 574 keyworker questionnaires returned at Phase 1
• 228 children had parent questionnaires for both phases – 53% of the 428 parent questionnaires returned at Phase 1
• In total, 212 children had both questionnaires completed at both phases – 51% of the 416 with both questionnaires completed at Phase 1

For the Comparator 3s, questionnaire packs were sent to 151 ELC settings and at least one questionnaire was returned from 112 of these. Response rates for this group of children are not as easy to estimate because information about the number of eligible children in every setting was not available. 

• At least one questionnaire was returned for 851 children, including 811 keyworker questionnaires and 565 parent questionnaires; 515 children had both questionnaires completed
• Based on the limited available evidence^[13], response rates among keyworkers in the 112 responding settings was around 90%, while for parents/carers it was around 60%. 

Nearly all the parent/carer questionnaires (92%) were completed by the child's mother or a female carer within the household, so where the terms "parent" or "parent/carer" are used throughout this report, they refer mostly to the mother or main female carer within the household.

Data analysis

One of the primary purposes of the ELC expansion programme in Scotland is to improve child developmental outcomes and to provide more parents with the opportunity to take up work, study or training if they wish to. These are desired outcomes for all parents and children, but especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Where there are identifiable and interesting relationships between variables such as area deprivation and child or parental outcomes these are outlined as far as possible in the report. Any discussion of area deprivation within the report findings is based on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) ranking of the child's home address. Note that this is not necessarily the same as the SIMD ranking of the ELC setting, which was used in drawing the sample and producing survey weights. Additional analysis of subgroups is included in the separate annex tables. More details of the data analysis conducted and the weighting of survey data are included in Appendix B.

Reporting conventions and statistical significance

Percentages are reported to the nearest whole number. Figures for the Eligible 2s are representative of only those who participated, and hence statistical significance is not meaningful. However, significance tests have been applied to aid with the assessment of the magnitude and importance of any differences, while recognising the limitations of their applicability to non-random samples. For the Comparator 3s, as the sample was random, statistical significance tests can be applied in the normal way. The figures shown for this group are an estimate of the true figures, and so should not be interpreted as being totally precise. A test for statistical significance allows us to tell whether two percentages we wish to compare are actually different in the population, given the amount of uncertainty we are prepared to accept in our sample. All comparisons for this group reported in the text have been tested for statistical significance, although levels of statistical significance are not reported. Where a difference is noted in the text, this difference is statistically significant at the 5% level – that is, we can be at least 95% confident that the difference really exists and is in the direction, if not exactly the magnitude, stated. Differences which are not statistically significant are generally not reported in the text unless it is considered noteworthy that no difference can be identified in the data between the groups of concern. 

In the tables a dash (-) signifies no cases fall into the particular category, whereas a zero (0) signifies at least one case falls into that category, but less than 0.5% of all cases. Figures based on fewer than 20 responses have been replaced by an asterisk (*).