Disadvantaged children in England are absent from early-years education more often than their peers, according to new research from the innovation charity Nesta. In the first systematic effort to track attendance, researchers found an average attendance rate of 79% among children eligible for 15 hours of free early education (the ‘2-year-old offer’), compared with 85% among their peers.

If the pattern of attendance found from these three local authorities is similar across England, it would mean up to 16 million hours of free early education may go unused among families who take up the 2-year-old offer. If we include the hours missed by eligible children whose families don’t take up the two-year-old-offer, disadvantaged children in England could be missing out on as many as 45 million hours of early-childhood education and care per year.

The ‘2-year-old offer’ entitles children from low-income families to 15 hours of free childcare per week. Introduced 10 years ago, it is intended to tackle the disadvantage gap in educational outcomes for children from rich and poor families. But the scheme has suffered from relatively low takeup (72%) among eligible families despite many local and national initiatives to improve uptake.

Published today by Nesta’s Fairer Start team, this research responds to the evidence gap around absence and attendance rates in early -ears education. While individual early-years settings keep attendance records for children, this attendance data is not systematically gathered at a local or national level – so very little is known about attendance rates before children start school.

The study was carried out in collaboration with Nesta’s three local authority partners – Leeds, Stockport and York – and 52 early-years settings across these local areas took part in the study. In total, 802 children were included in the study over a seven week period in summer 2022. Staff in each setting tracked planned hours – meaning the number of hours families signed children up for – against the number of hours children actually attended.

The research, published today by Nesta’s Fairer Start team, found that children eligible for the ‘2-year-old-offer’ were twice as likely to have attendance below 70% (23% compared with 11% of non-funded children).

When combined with the lost hours from eligible children who do not access the offer at all, there could be as many as 45 million hours of lost learning experienced by disadvantaged children in England.

Tom Symons, Deputy Director of Nesta’s Fairer Start team said: “We know the early years are vital in helping children achieve their potential and set them up for school. We need to do more to help eligible families use the two-year-old offer. In the three councils Nesta worked with, children eligible for free early education are less likely to attend consistently and much more likely to have low attendance. This is an important challenge for one of the government’s major early-years initiatives. Lower income families are under particular strain in terms of time, money and help. If we can do more to understand the pressures they face, we can help take the burden off families and design the programme in a more effective way.”

Nesta’s research has highlighted that even where take up of the two-year-old offer is high, there is a significant disadvantage gap in ECEC attendance. Alongside working to increase take up of the offer, there also need to be efforts to improve the attendance of those who do take up the offer.

• Department for Education (DfE) should provide support to the sector to improve digital data collection and sharing at local authority level
• DfE should fund a series of rigorous experimental trials testing different interventions’ impact on attendance rates
• Further research could explore what works in increasing attendance, such as text message interventions used in other countries

Councillor Andrew Waller, City of York Council’s Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education, said: “We know how important the first few years of a child’s life are in shaping their outcomes into adulthood and we’re pleased that through our ongoing partnership with Nesta we’ve been able to contribute to this research. Ensuring that all children have a good start is a priority in York and we will continue to work with local partners to explore how we can support families to make the most of their childcare provision over the coming months.”

Councillor Fiona Venner, Leeds City Council’s executive member for Adult and Children’s Social Care and Health Partnerships, said:
“It is our ambition to make Leeds the best city for children and young people to grow up in and we’re pleased to be involved in Nesta’s pioneering research. We welcome this greater understanding of the barriers disadvantaged children face in accessing early education and will continue to do everything we can to ensure all children get a fair start in life with access to the same opportunities.”

Councillor Mark Hunter, Greater Manchester Combined Authority lead for Young People, said: “The Fairer Start Local partnership with Nesta that we’ve been a key part of, along with Stockport Council, has been a valuable piece of research which we’re going to build on to benefit the whole of Greater Manchester. We are committed to levelling up in all its forms and particularly in closing the disadvantage gap in the early years. Attending a nursery or childminder helps ensure children are school ready and gives them a great start to life. We want to ensure that all families eligible for free early education are supported to take this up with good attendance levels, which continues through school. We’re working tirelessly across Greater Manchester to ensure children grow up with the opportunity to reach their full potential.”

Notes to editors

1. The type of settings recruited were representative of the setting mix across the three local authorities. Our study includes attendance data for around 30% of all funded 2-year-olds in York and Stockport, and 10% of funded 2-year-olds in Leeds.
2. The three local authorities included are partners in the A Fairer Start Local programme. They were not randomly sampled and do not constitute a nationally representative sample. This is a limitation in our ability to extrapolate our attendance findings to the whole of England. The figures included here should therefore be treated with caution as we do not provide a confidence interval for our estimate. They are a preliminary signal that more robust and systematic data on attendance in ECEC settings is urgently required.
3. We measured attendance rates in those settings for a seven week period in summer 2022. Staff in each setting created anonymous IDs for each 2-year-old child in their setting (i.e. names converted to Child 1, Child 2) to track planned hours (i.e. hours signed up for that week) and attended hours (i.e. hours actually attended) across the period.
4. As part of the preparation for this project, we set parameters for ‘good’ and ‘problematic’ attendance in advance. A review of literature about attendance levels in pre-school settings revealed there is no commonly accepted threshold for ‘poor’ attendance. The project partnership decided to use the threshold set for ‘persistent absence’ in primary schools (where attendance is mandatory, unlike in early-years settings). This meant any child attending less than 90% of their scheduled hours would be deemed as having ‘poor attendance’. We also set an additional threshold for ‘very poor attendance’ at less than 80% in order to categorise different levels of ‘poor’ attendance.
5. For more information on the analysis or to speak to one of the experts involved, please contact Mark Byrne, Head of Media, on 07745 234 909 or [email protected]

About Nesta

We are Nesta, the UK's innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to society's biggest problems. Our three missions are to give every child a fair start, help people live healthy lives, and create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet.

For over 20 years, we have worked to support, encourage and inspire innovation. We work in three roles: as an innovation partner working with frontline organisations to design and test new solutions, as a venture builder supporting new and early-stage businesses, and as a system shaper creating the conditions for innovation.

Harnessing the rigour of science and the creativity of design, we work relentlessly to change millions of lives for the better. Find out more at nesta.org.uk