Giving Compass' Take:

• Scotland is taking a step in the right direction for early education by funding an initiative to provide healthy meals and outdoor activities for pre-school children. This new program is a unique opportunity to transform early learning and childcare.

• How can other countries around the world focus funding on early childhood development? 

• Here's an article discussing the urgency for policymakers to focus on early childhood education. 

Details of the new scheme to provide healthy food, outdoor play and a living wage in funded early learning and childcare sessions (ELC) from August 2020 have been published in a new document.

It lays out the ‘Funding Follows the Child’ approach and the National Standard which underpins it, which all providers wishing to deliver the funded entitlement will have to meet from August 2020.

The earliest years of a child’s life are crucial to their development and high quality early learning and childcare plays a vital role in helping children realise their full potential and closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

The Funding Follows the Child approach means that parents will have the choice to access their child's funded entitlement from any provider that meets the National Standard, has a place available and is willing to enter a contract with the local authority.

Read the full article about Scotland's pledge for pre-school children by Meredith Jones Russell at Nursery World