Reviving Sure Start and investing in children is vital for society | Letters

Jane Lane laments the loss of opportunities that Sure Start provided for social cohesion and Stephen Burke moots the creation of centres for all ages. Plus, June O’Sullivan says ‘free’ childcare is anything but

Frances Ryan is right to draw attention to the fact that recent governments have broken down the unique opportunity of the Sure Start projects, set up under the Blair/Brown governments, to pioneer policies and practices that brought significant benefits to children (Reviving Sure Start highlights austerity’s trail of destruction, Journal, 11 November).

Not only did they blaze a trail, as Ryan so brilliantly describes, but they also opened up the possibility of providing opportunities for early years practitioners to counter children’s learning of negative attitudes and behaviour towards people who are different from them – including those of different gender, skin colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. Recent evidence shows that discrimination, prejudice, abuse and hatred are increasing in our society. Research evidence over decades also shows that children learn their attitudes to differences between people long before they go to school. So the work that was beginning to be done was critically important for our future society to have a chance of being more at ease with itself.

Continue reading...

from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2X80EP6