When it was first developed in 2021, the Coalition’s aim was for Birth to 5 Matters to be “guidance by the sector, for the sector”.
Throughout the process of developing the guidance there were opportunities for practitioners to be involved in drafting and commenting:
- October 2020 – initial consultation with the sector on the preferred content and format for the guidance – read a report of the feedback and the actions arising from it
- November 2020 – working groups were assigned to draft sections of the new guidance, which were then collated and edited by the project team
- December 2020 – sector consultation on the first draft of the guidance– read a report of the feedback and the actions arising from it
- January 2021 – working groups and the project team reviewed the feedback on the first draft and incorporated it into the second draft
- February 2021 – sector consultation on the second draft of the guidance– read a report of the feedback and the actions arising from it
- March 2021 – working groups and project team incorporated further feedback into the final version of the guidance, which was published on 31 March 2021.
Each working group was asked to provide a bibliography to indicate the key research which underpinned their work. You can find these linked from each section of the guidance, in addition to suggestions for further reading and resources to support practice.
Additional input
To supplement the responses from the online surveys, we also held a number of focus group meetings with practitioners to ensure we gained the perspectives of those who were less experienced or less highly qualified than our survey respondents. As the project developed, we also consulted with reference groups through Early Years Coalition member organisations.
The parent and child voice
While Birth to 5 Matters is provided for practitioners and parents are not the intended audience, we did nevertheless seek the views on the document draft of a small number of parents, through Coalition members. Within the short time scale of the project it was not possible to consult with children in an ethical and thorough way, but we gathered children’s voices through a small survey of what is important in early years settings to parents and children, and conducted a literature review of existing research offering children’s voices. You can read a summary of that work plus the resulting bibliography. In addition, children’s perspectives were represented through the knowledge and care of the many contributors who are attentive to, and respectful of, the children with whom they work.
The 2026 review and second edition
Five years after its publication, Birth to 5 Matters – Guidance by the sector, for the sector has been reviewed and relaunched to ensure it is up to date and best meets the needs of the sector.
As when developing the 2021 guidance, the Coalition called for people across the sector to get involved. An initial online survey in November set priorities for the review and found that there was strong support for continuity and avoiding “change for the sake of change”. However, there was also support for additional sections to cover digital pedagogy, sustainability, under 2s and Reception and beyond.
Specialist working groups were asked to respond to the survey findings to update the guidance and address any gaps. A draft of the revised guidance was publicly shared and a second online survey gave the sector a further opportunity to comment before the final version was produced.