About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

More about us

Transforming early childhood: narrowing the gap between children from lower- and higher-income families

In A fairer start

26 Feb 2024 09:30 – 11:30

Online and in person

This event took place on Monday 26 February. You can watch the recording below.

Poverty in the early years of a child’s life can be scarring, but it can be mitigated by strong public services for families. Over the past two decades, significant changes to policy for children and families have altered the landscape for how children grow up in England; some have been effective, others have not.

In a new report, Professor Kathy Sylva and Naomi Eisenstadt take stock of how these policies, for better or for worse, have brought us to the system that exists today. They explore the evidence for a system of policies and practices that will, by 2040, ensure every child will thrive – regardless of their background. Although this report is focused on the English system, the issues and practices discussed will be relevant to policymakers in other UK nations.

They look at this question from both a poverty-alleviating perspective and the need to build a strong, sustainable system for early childhood education. They argue that, while a range of policies could make significant contributions, the strongest evidence points to high-quality early education underpinned by a qualified and well-paid workforce.

We were joined by Professor Kathy Sylva and Naomi Eisenstadt and a panel of experts to explore what the ideal system for young children would look like from birth to school entry and what the most important steps are to achieving this.

Transforming early childhood

The opinions expressed in this event recording are those of the speaker. For more information, view our full statement on external contributors.

Sarah Cattan

Mission Director, fairer start mission

Professor Kathy Sylva

Kathy Sylva is Honorary Research Fellow and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oxford. She has led longitudinal studies on the effects of early childhood education on children’s development as well as intervention studies on parental support programmes. Much of her research focuses on education for disadvantaged children and she has worked in high and low income countries. She is a fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Social Sciences and the British Psychological Society.

Naomi Eisenstadt

Naomi Eisenstadt is chair of the NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board. After a long career in the NGO sector, in 1999 Naomi became Director of Sure Start. The Unit was responsible for delivering the Government’s commitment to free nursery education places, the national childcare strategy, and Sure Start, a programme aiming to reduce the gap in outcomes between children living in disadvantaged areas and the wider child population. Naomi then spent 3 years heading the Social Exclusion Task Force. Since leaving the Civil Service, Naomi has served as Adviser on poverty for the First Minister of Scotland, and published 2 books. Naomi is a trustee of the Financial Fairness Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Open University in 2002 and in 2005 became a Companion of the Bath.

Professor Iram Siraj

Iram Siraj OBE, is Professor of Child Development and Education, Department of Education at the University of Oxford, she held previous positions at UCL and Warwick. She has directed a number of influential longitudinal studies on the impact of preschool and primary education. Her current studies focus on process quality and key domains of learning including interventions on the impact of evidence-based professional development promoting physical, language and mathematics learning. She has over 250 publications including three widely-used rating scales which measure the quality of pedagogy in ECEC that promotes child outcomes in the cognitive (ECERS-E 4th Ed. 2010), social-emotional (SSTEW, 2024) and physical (MOVERS, 2024) domains. She has worked with and for families and children living with disadvantage for over 40 years.

Mike Brewer

Mike is the Deputy Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation, a think tank devoted to the economic wellbeing of low-to-middle income households in the UK, where he oversees the Foundation's research programme. He is also a visiting Professor at the Department of Social Policy at the LSE, and the author of a book, What Do We Know And What Should We Do About Inequality?

Transforming early childhood: narrowing the gap between children from lower- and higher-income families

About Nesta

Transforming early childhood: narrowing the gap between children from lower- and higher-income families

This event took place on Monday 26 February. You can watch the recording below.