Early Education Policy In Blair Period Of The U.K.-"Sure Start" Programme

During the administration of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the British Governmenthas introduced a number of policies and legislations for pre-school education reform. Thepurpose is to give children a good start and to influence the development of children ’s life byproviding high-quality pre-school education, childcare for all children. This can help familiesbreak out of the cycle of poverty and worklessness and realized the target of establishing annew welfare state gradually which is equal and fair.Sure Start is a U.K. government applying in England initiatively, originating with HMTreasury, with the target of "giving children the best possible start in their life " throughimprovement of early education, chlidcare, family and health support. Originally theprogramme was aimed to support the families, who are from pregnancy until their childrenwere four years old.But later the Sure Start was extended to contain undefined responsibilityuntil to age fourteen, and sixteen for those with disabilities.By summaring the pre-school education experience of itself and the other countries, theBritish goverment has found that the achivements and shortcomings. In order to meet the needof21stcentury, The British goverment set out the Best Start programme in2004. As theofficial documents,’Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children：A Ten Year Strategy forChildcare’ was published by the HM Treasury, the Department for Education and Skills andthe Department for Work and Pensions in December2004. The Government ’s vision is toensure that every child gets the best start in their life and to give their parents more choiceabout how to balance family life and work.This paper is divided into four chapters to study the Sure Start programme:The first chapter is ’ The background of the Sure Start programme ’, which introduce thebackground of the Sure Start programme from both sides of British social conditions and thetheoretical basis;The second chapter is divided into two periods to introduce the basic concepts and thedetailed contents of the Sure Start programme. The two periods are the Sure Start programmein1998and the Best Start programme in2004;The third chapter is ’ The evaluation of the Sure Start programme--NESS(NationalEvaluation of Sure Start)’. This chapter talks about the method and the contents;The fourth chapter is ’ The impacts and the features of the Sure Start programme ’.