We are delighted to share a thinkpiece by Sarah Gordon, Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education at Sheffield Hallam University, following on from our recent roundtable discussion on the lived experience of early years and rethinking the conditions shaping school readiness in children, as part of our FED National Education Futures Projects on Inclusion. In this two-part series thinkpiece Sarah asks, what if the earliest years of life didn’t belong in “school” at all? This thought-provoking piece challenges the assumption that childhood must be shaped by formal education, arguing instead for a distinct 0–6 phase built around relationships, play, family support, and social justice. It’s a bold reimagining of early childhood, not as preparation for life, but as life itself, raising a powerful question: what kind of society do we create when we truly design for children, not systems? Read part 2 below.
What If Childhood Came First? Part Two: Building an Early Childhood System Around Children, Not Institutions
Why taking 0–6 out of schools might help. It could protect early childhood from accountability creep
Where early years is embedded in schools, it often becomes subject to the culture of schools—even when policy says otherwise. Data expectations drift downwards. “Tracking” becomes normalised. The needs of the institution (consistency, timetabling, performance narratives) can quietly override the needs of children.
A separate phase could develop a different accountability story: one focused on quality of relationships, environments, inclusion, wellbeing and community engagement, rather than early attainment.
It could reduce the damage of premature formalisation
Many teachers and early years practitioners can describe the same pattern: children who might flourish with time, play and relational support instead experience early schooling as a kind of low-level pressure. For some children—particularly boys, summer-born children, neurodivergent children, children learning English as an additional language—early formal demands can produce a narrative of “behind” before they’ve properly begun.
Delaying “schooling” in the narrow sense is not about lowering ambition. It is about shifting ambition: from accelerating outcomes to deepening foundations.
It could strengthen inclusion—if done properly
The early identification of SEND and developmental differences needs care, not panic. Too often families experience early years as an obstacle course of thresholds, referrals and delays, with educators caught in the middle.
A well-funded 0–6 phase could integrate specialist support earlier, reduce adversarial processes, and create environments where difference isn’t immediately read as deficit.
It could tackle inequality upstream
By the time children arrive in school, inequality has already had years to do its work. A distinct early childhood phase—free or genuinely affordable, high quality, community-embedded—would be one of the most powerful equalising investments a society can make.
But—and this is crucial—it only works if it is universal and proportionate: offering more where needs are greater without turning families into “cases”.
The risks and hard questions
Risk 1. Creating a two-tier early childhood system
If we move 0–6 out of schools without guaranteeing quality and access, we risk expanding the gap between families who can purchase “enrichment” and families who cannot.
Any proposal must be anchored in a universal entitlement with strong public investment—otherwise “taking it out of schools” becomes “leaving it to the market”.
Risk 2. Workforce capacity and status
Early years is already under strain. A new phase would require significant workforce expansion, training pathways, and—most importantly—better pay and conditions. Without that, we simply reshuffle scarcity.
Risk 3. Transition at six
Transitions matter. Moving formal schooling to six doesn’t eliminate transition; it relocates it. The question becomes: can we design a transition that is gradual, relational and developmentally appropriate—rather than a cliff edge?
Risk 4. Childcare as infrastructure, not an afterthought
Many families need childcare for work. Any reimagined 0–6 phase must reconcile the tension between care as an economic necessity and care as a developmental and relational practice. The solution isn’t to pretend the tension doesn’t exist; it is to fund provision so it isn’t forced to choose between sustainability and quality.
What could it look like? A sketch of a 0–6 public phase
Imagine a national network of Early Childhood Communities—not “pre-schools” attached to primaries, but purpose-built civic institutions. Some might be co-located with schools, libraries, health services, or community centres—but governed separately, with early childhood as the organising logic. SURE START was a good start for this and below is not rocket science – the principles already exist.
Key design principles
- Birth–3 and 3–6 as a coherent continuum (with flexibility), not fragmented by funding streams.
- Key-person relational care, with staffing structures that prioritise continuity.
- Play, movement, outdoors and creativity as central, not peripheral.
- Integrated family support: health visiting links, perinatal mental health pathways, SEND services, speech and language access.
- Assessment for understanding, not ranking: observational, narrative, child-centred—used to support, not label.
- Workforce parity and professional identity: early childhood educators recognised as educators, not “childcare”.
- Democratic accountability: community governance, transparent standards focused on wellbeing, inclusion and quality, not attainment.
This isn’t fantasy. It is what happens when a society decides early childhood is a public good rather than a private problem.
A proposal like this is not just structural; it’s political. And the union role is pivotal, because the first people asked to “deliver change” are usually the workers—often without the resources, voice or protection to shape it.
- No reform without funded pay and conditions uplift for early years staff.
- Qualified status pathways that don’t replicate exclusion or gatekeeping.
- Ratios, time and workload protections that make relational practice possible.
- A rejection of downward accountability—no importing school performance cultures into early childhood.
- Inclusive provision as a right, backed by specialist staffing and training.
- Public investment guarantees to prevent privatisation-by-default.
- Co-produced policy: early years educators, families, communities and researchers shaping the model together.
In other words: if we’re going to reimagine early childhood, it must not become another round of reform done to practitioners rather than with them.
A final thought: the moral test of a society
There’s a line—variously attributed—that you can judge a society by how it treats its youngest. Whether or not it can be traced to a single author, the point stands: early childhood is a moral measure of our collective priorities. The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” takes the argument further, locating responsibility not in the individual family alone, but in the wider community. If we truly believed that, early years provision would be designed as civic infrastructure: relational, local, properly resourced—and owned by the village, not squeezed into the logic of school.
Taking 0–6 out of schools is not a technical fix. It is a moral proposition: that the earliest years deserve a phase built around what children actually need—time, care, play, language, belonging, and adults who are supported to support them.
Maybe the real question is not “Can we take 0–6 out of schools?” but: What are we willing to let childhood be, before we turn it into performance?
If we can hold that question open—honestly, collectively, without slipping into panic about standards—we might find ourselves designing something better than the system we’ve inherited.
And perhaps that is the most radical educational act of all.