Osborne to announce free childcare for 2 year olds

[OliviaMumsnet]

In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor will outline a £650 million scheme to provide free early education for about 40 per cent of two year-olds.

Just wondering what MNers think about this....

Education =/= sitting in rows learning the 3Rs. Stimulation and support to develop key skills is still education, even with 2 year olds. It is most certainly not a waste of time.

A lot of the kids targeted will never have seen a book. That puts them at a disadvantage, even at 2, to kids whose parents have been read to every day since they were absolutely tiny and who have had the chance to 'read' themselves whenever they want. Many of them will barely be spoken to at home, so their language skills will be much more poorly developed compared to children who come from homes where their parents have chatted away to them from birth. Some of them will never have seen cutlery, much less know how to use it. And so on, and so on.

A few hours a week at nursery can make an enormous difference to these children.

Bonsoir
that is terribly sad. And not surprising.

I'm surprised by the level of negativity about the proposals - I was quite positive when I heard the headline because it's exactly what my family needs (I'll be spending all my salary on childcare when I return to work after my second mat leave, and we'll have no money until we qualify for the 3-year old hours, when we'll slowly start to earn actual money again).

But, we won't qualify because we're not in the lowest 40%. And, having read some of the comments, I can see that while it would be a benefit if you're already in work, and it reduces a bill you're already committed to paying, it's no good at all to those who want to get back to work - it doesn't reduce the childcare barrier by a sufficiently large degree.

Still quite pleased that there's been SOME recognition of the extent to which the cost of childcare is crippling ordinary families and shutting poorer families out of the workforce. But there needs to be considerably more input from the govt in order to fix this.

But would the parents of these children use the funding????

Sigh.

Its just not that easy.

a PREDICTED double dip depression at that. and after having spent a fortune on ill thought out cuts they're now going to have to spend a fortune trying to undo some of them under the table, round the back, out of sight.

early intervention would be great for those seriously deprived kids who can't read etc. reality is it will be going also to people like me who are post grad educated with very bright and able and advanced kids but who happen to be on benefits for health reasons. the vast majority of people who will qualify and go for it will not be people whose children are deprived. they need to target these things not blanket policy them whilst fucking up another related area.

anyway.

apology accepted avadakadavra but i do hope you've learnt your bloody lesson madam!!!

who can't talk i meant - not can't read. not reading at 2 is pretty healthy!

InsertClever
Yes, but how do you do that when there is not the money in budgets? You cannot send a social worker out to every family whose children are being neglected to teach them to read. Aside from the fact that they would likely not listen.

I love the idea of early intervention, but fear those particularly in need will not see the benefits.

And we need a broad based affordable childcare solution.

good point insertclever - i'd actually rather they spent money on educating the parents and intervening with the problems at home than nursery time. i don't know maybe they could spend it on things like ooooh more social workers? oh or what about some system like say surestart centres?

imo (and i say this as someone who receives free school dinners for my son this year so it's not about what is in my interest) it's like the school dinner situation. i would actually prefer to see money go to make the school dinners affordable for EVERYONE than for some to have them free and some to have to fork out full whack. this reminds me of that. if things were affordable people would have options be they working class, middle class or whatever. instead of plugging the leaks for the worst off we need to make it work for everyone. you have to have cost of living (in this case childcare) kept somehow in line with wages and hours available to work.

I think I could look much more kindly on this initiative if:

Sure Start wasn't in free-fall, thanks to Tory cuts to council budgets
Capital costs were included so that the places would be additional to existing places
I didn't feel personally screwed on a number of fronts eg. childcare vouchers and child benefit being removed from me at the same time that my pension contributions and living costs are going up
Childcare generally was cheaper
And I could put my hand on my heart and say that IMHO nursery is a good setting for two year olds. Which it wasn't. For my two year old. (Not saying that for all children, but in my experience group setting didn't work for her until three years old).

swallowedafly
Yes, I agree with that.

"What costs nothing is worth nothing", my DH's boss used to say.

heliumballoon - nursery would not have been a better setting than home for my DD, either. But not all children have a SAHM with a large childproof and childfriendly home and get taken out and about every day as well as having plenty of books and toys and older siblings to play with. Whether nursery is or is not an improvement on life at home is immensely dependent on (a) the individual child (b) the individual home (c) the individual nursery.

What really f*cks me off is that they have run pilot schemes in several areas for this scheme, and the one that made the biggest impact was combining 9 hours nursery/childminder care with 6 hours intensive parenting and general support from a Sure Start Family Support Worker in the home. But because the Tory twats didn't ringfence Sure Start/Chidren's Centre funding, many areas don't have any Family Support Workers, so the most successful way of running the scheme is not the one that's going to be used nationally.

So, this new scheme will cost a few million and benefit no one... not the child who will get one extra year in nursery but still spend the 153 hours a week with a parent who is, at best, less than competent...not the parent who, in my experience, will get a break from their 2 year old but still have debts, domestic violence, mental health issues etc to deal with and no assistance in changing their own life...and not the taxpayer who will pay for a scheme that will have very little impact on the children it is supposedly benefitting.

So glad that the pilot study (which in itself cost £1 million + to complete) was completely wasted and it's results ignored

Looked at the minimal explanation on the Telegraph - it mentions the riots - that early intervention is necessary and right to prevent problems later on. Nice theory, yes it is better for a child to spend time away from home if family life is that bad, but it doesn't actually resolve the issue of the parent becoming a better parent.

I have worked with parents like this - they have all the childcare support but have no bond with their children. Children are still disturbed and neglected regardless of the hours of nursery time and it will manifest itself later on.

The money will be distributed by local authorities. My guess is that it will go to the childrens centres, to largely support the middle class parents that latch on to their funding.

If the announcement was 'free family support and parenting courses to disadvantaged families' I would be much more positive. A good parenting course can turn whole families around within weeks. A toddler nursery place may patch up a problem for a while but the real problems will remain.

yy, RealHousewife. It is a sticky plaster on a gaping wound.

That is interesting, Ballstoit, that the pilot scheme was successful because of the combination of factors.

Same old Tories.

He dare tackle the poor. But dare not tackle the rich on tax fiddles

A better parent up to a point is a matter of opinion. (state schools against boarding schools etc) The Daily Torygraph is not exactly neutral on politics.
Perhaps it is better to read a broader view of press opinion

In crude terms, the millionaire Chancellor has switched from 3 years of hard slog to 8-10 years   (who knows?)

Apologies for jumping in and not reading the entire thread

But what are the criteria for receiving a nurery place for a 2 year old??

Will it be done purely on income?

I don't have a 2 year old sooooooo......oh that's right nothing for us the jolly old squeezed middle oh unless you have a 2 year old.

Seems to me yet again it's the very poor,the very rich and pensioners that the gov give a stuff about(oh and now those of us with 2 year olds).The rest of with children just aren't worth even thinking about.

Same old,same old.

Also most 2 year olds I know learn just fine in their own home with their mum or dad.Not all mums want to put their 2 year olds into childcare,what do those that don't get?

Would have thought all those millions would be better spent making life easier for all families to get through these hard times.

The middle classes won't be eligible for it SAF

SAF
I don' think that has been announced, and the pilot schemes seem to have different criteria, but generally it looks like low income families, from deprived areas. (see LisaD's post near beginning of the thread)

'I think the getting mothers back to work aspect would be minimal, but it may not be the real intention behind the scheme. Children from deprived backgrounds are (statistically) more likely to arrive at school with very significant language delays. This holds them back in their education right from the start. Putting money into so called 'early intervention' like this gives these children a better chance. That can save the government considerable sums of money over the long term (from all manner of budgets), far more than it costs to pay for some toddlers to go to nursery for a few hours a day.'

I work in a settinga nd habe been working with ss and the pilot sheme before. It is usual for the resons above or that the parent/s are struggling. Damsel has summed it up brilliantly in the above post

I will add I have never met a pilot scheme family that got this without having a lot more going on in their lives than just low income usually mental health, speech and language problems, developmental delay, mum depressed or cant cope, having problems in some way and this is a way for ss to monitor/observe