The name is absent

The importance of context

nature of effects may depend on mothers’ employment and occupation as well as the
engagement of fathers and other adults in the household. To simplify presentation we
focus on pre-schools. The availability, accessibility, affordability and quality of pre-
schools are also influenced by neighbourhood characteristics, indeed the quality of
local pre-schools may be thought of as a neighbourhood characteristic.

3.4.1 The effects of pre-schools on child development

As with educational behaviours in the home such as reading to children and exposure
to print (section 2.3), participation in an early childhood education programme can
provide pre-school children with skills and enrichment that can increase their chances
of success in school. Many studies report on the association of good pre-school
quality with a variety of positive outcomes for young children. High quality,
developmentally appropriate childcare in the pre-school years is associated with
enhanced social, emotional, and, in some cases, linguistic competence for low and
middle income children alike.

An influential study from the US by Schweinhart et al. (1986) investigated pre-school
systems for children in Ypsilanti, Michigan considered to be at risk of failing at
school. They randomly selected a group of children to receive pre-school education,
finding that the average Stanford-Binet IQ of the treatment sample rose by 27 points
during the first year. The control group’s average IQ rose by only 4 points. By age
seven the average IQ of the treatment group had stabilised at between 90 and 100
compared to between 85 and 90 for the control sample. One of the most important
findings of this study was that different curricula in pre-school seem to have different
effects.

Early British research by Osborn and Milbank (1987) used the British 1970 Cohort
Study (BCS70) and found large and significant benefits of pre-school experience on
most of their attainment measures at five and ten years. US findings similarly reported
positive relations between good quality pre-school experiences and later attainment
(Howes, 1990; NICHD, 1997, 1998; Ramey & Ramey, 1998).

More recently, the EPPE project has investigated the impact of attending a pre-school
centre. EPPE has demonstrated the positive effects of high quality provision on
children’s intellectual and social/behavioural development. Pre-school attendance
improved all measured aspects of children’s cognitive development and social
behaviour, such as independence, concentration, co-operation, conformity and
relationships with other children at entry to primary school. Children with no (or
limited) pre-school experience had poorer cognitive attainment, sociability and
concentration when starting school. These findings hold when observed differences
between the pre-school and home groups in child, family and home environment
characteristics were taken into account⁵.

⁵ In comparison with sample children who attended a pre-school centre, home children differ
considerably in some of their socio-demographic characteristics. For example, home children are

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