The Mapping early years practice project was carried out in 2022-2023 to test a data collection method that might help us to understand more about how local authorities’ (LAs) early-years policies and practices may be driving differences in children’s outcomes. This pilot project included a survey and in-depth interviews with representatives from 27 LAs in England. It was carried out by our project partner, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). You can read the findings from this pilot study. 

As part of the original project, Nesta’s data scientists conducted an innovative clustering analysis of publicly available data to understand shared characteristics of LAs in England. LAs were grouped into seven clusters (see map below) based on their shared similar characteristics. Using the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) results, we compared LAs within each cluster based on the percentages of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) reaching a good level of development (GLD) in each LA. The aim was to understand how children’s outcomes varied within and between these different clusters. 

Now, we have created case studies about seven LAs from the original study, describing some of the unique features of their early-years service delivery. We chose these seven LAs because they had higher percentages of children eligible for FSM reaching a GLD compared to other LAs in the same cluster. While we cannot be sure that any specific feature of early-years service delivery is driving these better outcomes for disadvantaged children, we thought it could be useful for other LAs to read about early-years practices in these case studies.

The seven case studies are based on material gathered in the original study. It covered six topics, including: 

• parenting and the home learning environment (HLE)
• the Healthy Child Programme (HCP)
• speech, language and communication (SLC)
• infant mental health and perinatal mental health 
• assessment, data and information sharing 
• quality in early childhood education (ECE). 

These case studies offer useful information and insights on early-years practice and policies across local authorities. By sharing approaches used in different contexts where poorer children are experiencing better outcomes, we hope to inspire collaboration across and within LAs, and support positive developments in early-years service delivery that lead to improved outcomes for children.