A child’s early years play a significant role in determining their chances later on in life. Currently, all three- and four-year-olds in England are entitled to 15 hours of early education and childcare per week. Some families meeting certain requirements are also entitled to an additional 15 hours, making a total of 30 hours.

Often the children and families who need childcare the most don’t get access to the full 30 hours. This could because they aren’t working enough hours, aren’t earning enough money or their shift patterns mean they don’t qualify.

Currently under the current eligibility criteria for the 30 hours entitlement, it is predominantly children in better off homes who are eligible for a full-time place. This means many families are ‘locked out’ of extra childcare.

The Sutton Trust has a campaign called A Fair Start which aims to influence the government to reform the system to allow better access to the 30 hours entitlement and ensure that families who could really benefit from extra childcare are able to access it.

The Sutton Trust is looking for parents willing to share their stories to help with their campaign, which aims to give all children access to great early years education.

They are looking for parents who:

• couldn’t access the full 30 hours childcare support for whatever reason. This might be they weren’t working enough, earning enough or their shift patterns meant they didn’t qualify
• wanted to go back to work or increase their hours, but it wasn’t financially viable as they couldn’t immediately access the 30-hour offer.

We’re hoping to find parents willing to share their experience to help us get the policy changed. If you’ve struggled to get 30 hours of childcare, please email with a short explanation about your experience to [email protected]

You can find out more about the Trust’s campaign here: //www.suttontrust.com/a-fair-start-equity-in-access-to-early-years-education.