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This article draws on findings from the first cross-national study of school exclusions in the four jurisdictions of the UK. It sketches factors associated with the past research with reductions in exclusions. It then reports interview data gathered in England in 2018 from five specialist officers working in two Local Authorities and a senior officer working for a national voluntary organisation. The officers describe good practice but also national, local and school level developments contributing to a deteriorating situation. These developments include unhelpful government guidance and regulations; school accountability frameworks affecting curriculum and leading to the neglect of Special Educational Needs; loss of Local Authority powers and funding resulting in reductions in support services. Data gathered for this study in other UK jurisdictions suggests that in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to a lesser extent in Wales, a practice that avoids school exclusions has persisted more than in England.

This report considers international research on the impact of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision upon children's development, using studies reported from a wide range of sources including journals, books, government reports and diverse organisation reports. High-quality childcare has been associated with benefits for children's development, with the strongest effects for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. There is also evidence that negative effects can sometimes occur. The results of studies partly depend upon the context and ECEC systems in place in different countries, but there is sufficient commonality of findings to indicate that many results are not culture-specific. Discrepant results may relate to age of starting and also differences in the quality of childcare. In addition, childcare effects are moderated by family background with negative, neutral and positive effects occurring depending on the relative balance of quality of care at home and in childcare. Recent large-scale studies find effects related to both quantity and quality of childcare. The effect sizes for childcare factors are about half those for family factors. The analysis strategy of most studies attributes variance to childcare factors only after family factors has been considered, and, where the two covary, this can produce conservative estimates of childcare effects