Christine Farquharson

Christine Farquharson gave a talk on the landscape for early years spending and the challenges facing the sector going forward.

This report looks at annual education spending in the UK.

In this observation, we set out the key facts on how England’s childcare system is structured, how it has changed over time, and some of the pressures it faces over the course of the coming Spending Review.

In this report, we examine how the learning experiences of English school children evolved over the course of the first 12 months of disruption, from the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2020 until the end of the second period of school closures in March 2021.

Over the last two decades, Sure Start Children’s Centres (and their predecessors, Sure Start Local Programmes) have been one of the most important policy programmes in the early years in England. These centres operate as ‘one-stop shops’ for families with children under 5, bringing together a range of support including health services, parenting support programmes, and access to childcare and early education.

Recent IFS work shows that students from disadvantaged backgrounds see some of the largest financial benefits from going on to university. But these students are also less likely to attend university than their better-off peers who get exactly the same grades as them. And, even among students with the same grades attending the same HE programme, those from disadvantaged backgrounds still on average go on to earn less.

This briefing note describes the range and level of COVID-related spending on education in England.