Critics of the UK government's enthusiasm for Sure Start have seized on the results of a Durham University study that has found no improvement in developmental levels of children entering primary school despite massive investment in a number of early childhood initiatives.

A six-year comparison of almost 35,000 children led by Dr Christine Merrell of Durham's Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre, has reported that children’s development and skills at the start of school are no different than they were before the introduction of the early childhood curriculum, the Sure Start program, free nursery education for all three-year-olds and the more recent introduction of the Children’s Act 2002 and the Every Child Matters initiative.

Presented at the biennial European Association for Learning and Instruction conference, her findings rest on returns from her Centre’s own Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) assessment which is being used to monitor children’s progress in over 3,000 primary schools in the UK. (See Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre press release)

Dr Merrell explained: "Our aim is to provide a single perspective on the changing profiles of children starting school in England during a time of rapid change. While the PIPS assessments do not measure how many children were involved in national initiatives, one would have expected that the major government programs would have resulted in some measurable changes."

She said the research highlighted a key implication for the implementation and scientific monitoring of future education policy.

"Initiatives should be based on high quality evidence and be introduced in ways that allow for continuous scientific monitoring and adjustment in the light of evidence. That means randomly assigning programs to sample groups and analyzing impact through well-designed evaluations before introducing them on a wider scale.

"Even then, high quality data need to be used to track the impact of the evolving intervention. Only then can the Government really measure what does and doesn’t work in education.

"This scientific approach takes time, financial investment and expertise. It requires long-term vision currently rare in education."