Research and analysis

Early education and outcomes to age 4

Research into the impact of early education at ages 2 to 4 on child outcomes at age 4, and the importance of the early years home environment.

Applies to England

Documents

Study on early education use and child outcomes up to age 4: main report

Study on early education use and child outcomes up to age 4: technical annex

Study on early education use and child outcomes up to age 4: research brief

Details

This research is part of the longitudinal study of early education and development (SEED).

The report addresses 3 main objectives:

  • to study the associations between the amount of differing types of early childhood education and care (ECEC) that children receive aged 2 to 4 years and child development at age 4
  • to investigate the relevance of the home environment and the quality of the parent to child relationship on child development at age 4
  • to study the associations between the quality of the ECEC settings that children have attended and child development at age 4

Updates to this page

Published 8 September 2018
Last updated 18 November 2021 + show all updates
  1. Updated the 'Early education use and child outcomes up to age 3: main report, research brief and technical annex' to reflect that informal individual ECEC was not significantly associated with SDQ total difficulties.

  2. First published.

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