Early Years Consultation Response
Early Years has submitted a comprehensive response to the Draft Executive Early Learning and Childcare Strategy informed by wide ranging and direct engagement with sectoral representatives, parents and children. We support the direction of travel and we welcome the Executive’s recognition that…
Early Years has submitted a comprehensive response to the Draft Executive Early Learning and Childcare Strategy informed by wide ranging and direct engagement with sectoral representatives, parents and children. We support the direction of travel and we welcome the Executive’s recognition that children, families, providers and the workforce all need a stronger system.
However, our direct engagement evidence is unequivocal: ambition alone will not deliver change.
The final strategy should be strengthened so that affordability, quality, inclusion and sustainability are pursued together rather than in competition.
In particular, the final strategy should explicitly focus on what matters most to children, protect the mixed market, bring direct engagement evidence into implementation design, and ensure that the people expected to deliver the strategy are funded, supported and valued.
Early Years stands ready to continue working with Government and partners to refine and implement a final strategy that is practical, equitable and genuinely shaped by lived experience. This means developing solutions for ALL children including pre-natal.