The name is absent

The importance of context

In addition, EPPE research indicates that pre-school can play an important part in
combating social exclusion and promoting inclusion by offering disadvantaged
children, in particular, a better start to primary school. EPPE’s findings indicate that
whilst not eliminating disadvantage, pre-school experiences can help to ameliorate the
effects of social disadvantage and can provide children with a better start to formal
education. These findings on quality are consistent with other large scale longitudinal
research including data from the NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and
Development) and CQO (Childcare Quality and Outcomes) in the US.

It is important to emphasise that the benefits of pre-school participation for
disadvantaged children are likely to be eroded if the intervention or programme does
not extend beyond the early years (Ramey et al., 2000; Ramey & Ramey, 1992). Thus
pre-school programmes are very important but are not a panacea for all social ills.

3.4.2 The effects of prior parental education on pre-schools

As has been noted for the contexts above, the direct influence of parents’ own
education on their choice of pre-school arrangements and settings has rarely been the
primary focus of research. However, there are clear grounds for a relationship. More
educated parents are likely to be better able to assess the quality of pre-schools as well
as have greater and easier access to them.

Research by EPPE (Melhuish et al., 1999) examines the characteristics of parents
using different types of pre-school by parents’ qualification levels. Those mothers
using private day nurseries had higher levels of educational qualifications than other
mothers. In contrast, the majority of mothers using local authority centre pre-schools
had no qualifications (see Table 1.21, p.15). The qualification levels are similar for
mothers using nursery classes and playgroups. Note however, that in terms of the
quality by these types of provider, EPPE finds that LEA centres (nursery schools,
nursery classes and nursery schools combined with care) had scores in the good-to-
excellent range. Playgroups and private day nurseries were consistently found to have
scores in the minimal-to-adequate range (Sylva et al., 1999). These findings reflect
similar results from Ofsted reports. Therefore the expected relationship of parental
education and pre-school quality may not hold in practice. However this conclusion
needs to be tested in multi-variate analysis that considers not the relationship of
parental education and pre-school type but of parental education and pre-school
quality, controlling for type.

3.4.3 Summary

Overall, the pre-school context is an important one for children’s development. The
effects of pre-schools depend importantly on distal features of the family context such
as family structure, size, maternal employment flexibility and opportunity.

Nonetheless, there is good evidence that quality pre-schools have important benefits
for children’s development.

more likely to be from ethnic minority groups, larger families and have mothers with no formal
qualifications.

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