This month, I was pleased to author an article on our free early years meals (FEYM) research for Nursery World’s EYE Early Years Educator (EYE) supplement. Writing it several months on from when the research was originally published provided an opportunity to reflect on how much has moved on even in that short time, and how the findings continue to shape our conversations across the sector and with government.
The numbers in that original research were stark, and they remain so. Around 290,000 disadvantaged under-fives are estimated to be missing out on free early years meals in the next school year – children in Universal Credit households who, due to the way the policy is designed and the disparity in support between early years and school, simply cannot access the nutrition support they are deserve.
In the article for EYE, I set the data alongside the lived realities – the practitioners running deficits to feed children because no dedicated funding exists, the families making impossible choices within stretched budgets, and the children arriving at settings hungry and struggling to engage as a result. Working in national policy, it’s easy to lead with the numbers, and sometimes that’s what opens the door with government. But it’s important to remember that behind every statistic is a child being left on the back foot before they’ve even started school, and a practitioner doing their best without adequate support.
Since we published the research, the policy landscape has continued to shift. There are encouraging signs – the Government has stated school-based nurseries will be included in the scope of the upcoming FSM expansion, and there appears to be growing recognition that food in early years cannot continue to be treated as an afterthought. There is still much further to go, and we hope to work with government to build on this momentum and extend that support to all children who need it.
We are also lucky to be working with some fantastic local authorities, such as Essex County Council, who are not waiting for the perfect national policy to materialise – they are designing and testing their own solutions, learning from what works, and demonstrating real commitment to the children and settings in their communities. With the right support and direction from national government, there is real potential for these place-based success stories to be scaled nationally or replicated for other local contexts.
The stories we hear from practitioners and families make the strongest case for change, and what those stories tell us, consistently, is that support needs to reach children where they are. Any solution must be designed around the complexity of the early years sector: the diversity of settings, the variation in how families access childcare, and the very particular needs of children at the earliest and most critical stage of their development.
Read the EYE supplement article via the link below.