Our children have the best start in life and are ready to succeed
Why is this National Outcome important?
Our children thrive when they have self-confidence, social skills and an awareness of their impact on others and the world around them. However, it is increasingly evident that one generation passes on its inequalities to the next in the first few precious years of life.
Investing in a child's early development can help to prevent this and create the foundations for fulfilment, good health and wellbeing and positive economic and civic engagement later in life.
What will influence this National Outcome?
Focusing on early years and early intervention, we took a new approach of developing a joint policy approach with local government in order to ensure that national and local efforts are all pointing towards meeting children's needs. Our approach marks a fundamental shift away from dealing with the symptoms of inequality and sets a radical new agenda. Through giving support at the first opportunity, we will offer better chances for those at risk, reinforce families, promote maternal health, tackle drug and alcohol misuse and strengthen communities
The early years of life are largely defined by the family. A child brought up in a stable and nurtured environment is better placed to succeed in life than a child from a less secure background. We believe, therefore, that the biggest gains in improved outcomes and reduced inequality will come from supporting parents, tackling health and other inequalities and by creating safer, stronger communities which are positive places to grow up in.
The approach behind Getting it Right for Every Child, our national vision for children's services, supports this intention and indeed the whole early years framework. We will continue to develop services which are integrated across the public sector and centred around the needs of children and families.
This is a long term effort. Improving outcomes and tackling entrenched inequality will not be achieved overnight. The benefits of early intervention can only be realised by prioritising resources across local government, the health service and the entire public sector and will be felt across outcomes relating to health, community well being and economic prosperity.
What is the Government's role?
The early years framework will signal the commitment of both local and national governments to break this cycle through prevention and early intervention. We aim, in short, to give every child in Scotland the best start in life.
Children need care and attention to thrive, especially in the vital pre and early school years. Working with local government, we will progressively reduce class sizes in primary 1 to primary 3. This will give more time for each child, improve behaviour and increase motivation. Together with the right level and quality of nursery provision, we are ensuring that our children are ready to succeed.
Improving children's diet and levels of physical activity can have a major impact on their health, with beneficial outcomes throughout later life. That is why, in addition to educating our young people about healthy lifestyles, we are championing healthy eating by funding nutritious, free school meal pilots for primary 1 to primary 3 and tackling poverty by working with local authorities to extend the entitlement to free, nutritious school meals.
Children's services have an important role to play in providing support. More important still is our role in supporting parents to develop their own skills and by working with them to make best use of the strengths within the family and their social networks. This Government is taking a whole-family and community approach to the best start in the early years, an approach that will make a lasting impact on future generations.
Related Strategic Objectives
Smarter
Healthier
Wealthier and Fairer