ABSTRACT
The places built on longer-term policy trajectories focused on the importance of quality years services for supporting the holistic development of children, alongside facilitating parental employment. The discussion of the environment included providing stimulating resources appropriate to the developmental needs of two-year-olds, including outdoor resources, recognising that some of the children that were being targeted within the two-year-old offer would not have access to the outdoors within their home environment. Whilst attention to quality has long been a feature of years policy, the two-year-olds funding differed from the three- and four-year-olds offer by including quality criteria to determine which settings were eligible to draw down the state funding to provide the places. The accountability structures are evident in other quality initiatives, such as the upskilling of the workforce and the adoption of managerial and entrepreneurial-based models over a more ethical construct of years practitioners.
