EECERA Conference 2025 – Guest Blog # 29: Real change for childhoods

One of a series of short blog posts by presenters who will be sharing their work at the upcoming annual conference in Bratislava, Slovakia. Any views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their affiliated institution or EECERA.

Real change for childhoods: How an integrated Health Visiting review for three-year-olds and their caregivers can support all children to be “ready to learn.”

By Victoria Morgan

Photo by Ryan Fields on Unsplash

School readiness has recently taken centre stage in early years policy in England with the government setting an ambitious target that by 2028, 75% of all five-year-olds should achieve a ‘good level of development’ (Department for Education, 2025). Recent surveys of early years educators and parents in England and Wales suggest that there is a mismatch in expectations and definitions of school readiness (Kindred Squared, 2024) with action needed to ensure that communities, families and schools are “school ready” as well as supporting children to meet their developmental milestones.

Since 2015, Better Start in Blackpool, UK has been innovating, testing and crucially thinking differently about one of the most critical and challenging areas of public service: pregnancy and the early years.  We are driven by a shared vision of real and lasting change for childhoods, from pregnancy to starting school.

In Blackpool we know that all members of the local partnership are integral to ensure children are ready to learn when they start school including early years settings and our health visiting teams.

The role of the Blackpool Enhanced Health Visiting Service in school readiness

Within the early childhood professional space Health Visitors (specialist children’s public health nurses) in England are uniquely placed to support babies, young children and their families, providing at least 5 home visits including one at 2.5 years to review their health and development prior to school.

As part of the Blackpool Better Start Partnership systemic approach to change, in 2018, the health visiting service was transformed, embedding an enhanced model which upskilled professionals, developed a shared understanding and language around child development and increased the number of universal contacts to eight visits, including a “school readiness” check at age 3- 3.5 years old.

At this year’s EECERA conference, we’ll be sharing findings from our evaluation the “school readiness visit” for three-year-olds and their caregivers, demonstrating the importance of innovative, integrated models like the Blackpool Enhanced Health Visiting pathway and its three-year integrated development review with a focus on school readiness, to enhance support for families, utilising resources effectively and efficiently.

We will also be presenting about how we have developed a shared understanding and inclusive school readiness approach that mitigates existing disparities.

Developing the shared understanding that readiness for school is everyone’s responsibility has been a central focus of Better Start’s, School Readiness Working Group for some time. Since 2021 Better Start has collaborated with leading experts in early child development, both locally and nationally, to shape an approach that actively addresses the disparities children face and promotes equity from the earliest years.

Our evaluation of our school readiness offer, shows that true progress in school readiness cannot be achieved in silos. It requires a coordinated, cross-sector effort bringing together parents and carers; early years settings and schools; and health and community services around a shared vison for every child.

Embedding school readiness in a systems approach

Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, our research recognises that children’s development is influenced by multiple layers of interaction—from family and community to broader societal systems.  Previous research (Britto, 2012) has highlighted the need for school readiness to be embedded within a broader early childhood system.  In this evaluation we examine how the implementation and delivery of population-level intervention brings together health visitors, parents/caregivers, and early educators in a shared mission to support children’s holistic development.

Adopting an improvement science methodology (Bartman et al., 2018) our evaluation utilised qualitative and quantitative, ensuring that the voices of practitioners and families were central to our evaluation while using service monitoring data to map delivery and outcomes.

Looking Ahead

At EECERA, I’ll be discussing in more detail the learning from this evaluation and practicalities of implementing this model, the challenges we encountered. I’ll also explore how this work fits into the Better Start wider vision for integrated early years systems that place babies, young children and their families at the centre.

Learn more about Better Start’s collective approach to school readiness in our second presentation. We will reflect on how, through collaboration with stakeholders, we have developed, tested and shaped an approach that has contributed to an increase in the number of children achieving a Good Level of Development (GLD) in Blackpool, England and how next steps for Better Start’s ‘Ready Steady School’ offer as we continue to ensure children in Blackpool get the best start in life.   

Connect

If you’re interested in learning more about this research or exploring opportunities for collaboration, please connect:

• linkedin.com/company/blackpool-better-start

• betterstart.org.uk
• ‪@better-start.bsky.social

Let’s continue the conversation about how we can build systems that support every child to be ready to learn.

Come and listen 

Victoria Morgan will present work referred to in this blog in Symposium Set A25 (Tuesday 26th August 2025, 13:30 – 14:50). (Schedule liable to change; please refer to final programme for details).

References

Britto, P. R. (2012) School Readiness: A Conceptual Framework, UNICEF: New York

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Huma Development: Experiments by Nature and Design, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA

Department for Education (2025) Giving every child the best start in life Giving every child the best start in life – GOV.UK

Opportunity Mission (2024) Break Down Barriers to Opportunity – GOV.UK