About

The Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) is a major longitudinal study following nearly 6,000 children from across England from age two. It started in 2013, and it is funded by the Department for Education (DfE).

DfE have extended the SEED study to 2029. The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) will deliver the extension in collaboration with University College London, Durham University, University of Bristol and SQW.

The original SEED study (2013-2021) was carried out by NatCen in collaboration with Frontier Economics, the University of Oxford and Action for Children.

Just under 6,000 families took part in the baseline survey over the period from October 2013 to November 2014. Most children in the study were two years old at the time of the baseline interview. The sample of families in the SEED study is representative of the population of families with children aged two in England at the time.

Children in SEED were born over a two year period (September 2010 to August 2012), and are divided into six cohorts according to the term in which they were born.

The sample was designed to have three subgroups sampled in equal proportion, i.e. such that each group made up around a third of the sample in each cohort. The three subgroups were:

The study involves a number of strands of work:

• A longitudinal survey of almost 6,000 children aiming to find out how characteristics of the early environment, including early childhood education and care, relate to child development over time. This strand involves:
  • Interviews with families when children are age two, three, four, five and ten (2013-2023), with the next survey planned for when the young people will be in Year 11 at school (2027-2028)
  • Surveys with childcare staff and school teachers
  • Linking to educational attainment data in the National Pupil Database
• A study of quality in 1,000 group based early years settings being used by children in the study (2017) and around 100 childminders (2015). This aimed to understand what is important for high quality childcare provision and how the quality of provision relates to child outcomes.
• A study of the value for money of early childhood education and care.
• COVID-19 follow-up surveys in 2020 and 2021: two special waves of SEED were carried out as online-telephone surveys to capture SEED families’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In 2022-23 the last wave of face-to-face fieldwork with families took place. This wave also included a short survey with the class teachers of SEED children, examining the children’s attitudes, behaviours and developments in school.

We are not currently collecting any new data for the study but we will be in touch again when young people taking part in SEED are in Year 11 at school.

• Qualitative studies (2014-2017)
  • Interviews to investigate the views of childminders
  • Case studies of good practice in group based providers
  • A study of providers’ experiences of the Early Years Pupil Premium
  • A study of early education provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities involving interviews with families and staff at early years settings.

The Department for Education have extended the SEED study to 2029, and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) will deliver the extension in collaboration with University College London, Durham University, University of Bristol and SQW.

The original SEED study (2013-2021) was carried out by NatCen in collaboration with Frontier Economics, the University of Oxford and Action for Children.