Section Five: The Pre-School Settings: Context and Quality.

The EPPE research was designed to enable the linking of three sets of data: (1) information
about children's attainment and development (at different points in time), (2) information about
parents and the home, and (3) information about pre-school experience (type of centre and its
characteristics). This section focuses on the 141 settings and the local contexts in which they
operated.

Table 5.1 Pre-school types

The table below shows the recruitment from different types of pre-school provision.

The low number of integrated centres reflects their rarity at the time the study started. Information
about the pre-school centres was collected through two methods. Interviews were conducted
with all centre managers and in addition we interviewed 12 Local Authority coordinators in order
to provide a context to the pattern of provision being studied in EPPE, in terms of the impact of
government initiatives. Also systematic observations, supplemented by interviews were used to
provide profiles of the experience and activities provided by the pre-school centres to the children
in their care.

Observational Profiles of Centres

There have been studies in many countries on the relationship between the quality of pre-school
provision and children’s developmental outcomes (see Melhuish, 2004a,b). Loeb, Fuller, Kagan
and Carrol (2004) studied the relationship between the quality of caregivers’ interactions (as
measured on the Arnett Scale) with children and developmental outcomes in the children they
served. In a sample of disadvantaged children, they found that children had greater reading
readiness and fewer social problems when the Arnett scores for staff sensitivity were higher.
Similarly the Cost Quality and Outcomes Team (Peisner-Feinberg et al, 1999) found quality
effects: higher quality measured on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R,
Harms et al 1998) was associated with better language attainment at the end of Year 1, after
controlling for background factors. Another relevant research study was carried out by Phillips et
al. (2000) on variation in quality across different states in the U.S. They found that differences in
state legislation were associated with differences in quality. This important study shows how
closely quality is linked to legislation (Porter, T. et al., 2002).

The EPPE project created a ‘centre profile’ for each centre through systematic observation and
questions to staff. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale: Revised (ECERS-R) was
used in drawing up each centre’s profile along with an extension to it: ECERS-Extension (Sylva,
Siraj-Blatchford and Taggart, 2003) based upon the curriculum guidelines for young children in
common use at the time (QCA/DfEE Desirable Learning Outcomes 1996). The ECERS-R rating
scale consisted of seven sub-scales covering aspects of the setting from furnishings to
individuality of care and the quality of social interactions. The ECERS-E (Sylva, Siraj-Blatchford
and Taggart, 2003) describes the curriculum within the pre-school, including areas such as
mathematics and literacy. Each sub-scale is comprised of a range of items describing ‘quality’ of
the specific type of provision. Each item was rated 1 (inadequate) to 7 (excellent). For more
information on the quality rating scales see the Technical Paper 6 and 6a by Sylva et al. (1999).

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