Yes, we’ve changed.

We’ve had a spring makeover. Sadly, I’ve not yet turned into Anna Wintour, but we do have a crisp new design and an elegant new logo that reflects our brand’s digital evolution and emphasises our proud Scottish heritage.

But while on the outside we look different, inside we’re reassuringly familiar - only better. In the magazine, we’ll still be bringing you penetrating analysis, biting comment, exhaustively researched features and leading classroom practice. And online at tes.com, you’ll find all the latest breaking news and snappy comment, as well as jobs, resources and courses.

Tes Scotland started in 1965 as a newspaper. Today, you can read our content in magazine format, in an app or online. But those early years as the Times Educational Supplement Scotland were fundamental to who and what we are today. It’s a similar story for children: their first years are vital and determine who and what they will become.

Unfortunately, while Scotland’s policymakers have been talking up the early years for some time, a large proportion of the national debate and investment continues to revolve around secondary. Perhaps we should be even more focused further down the education chain to try to make outcomes more equitable, especially for disadvantaged children.

‘Tools for upward mobility’

James Heckman, a Nobel laureate and professor of economics at the University of Chicago, has researched the economics of education in the early years. His conclusion leaves little doubt: “Early childhood education is the most efficient way to provide the tools for upward mobility”.

And that behemoth of global education, Pisa, says the effects of attending a quality preschool are still evident in results at age 15.

So if there is a wealth of evidence showing that good early intervention works, why is this stage constantly overlooked? After all, if the achievement gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged - 19 months in school readiness, according to the Sutton Trust - is not closed early, it just gets wider and wider, making teachers’ jobs harder and harder. And pouring hundreds of millions of pounds each year into widening access schemes to help disadvantaged children to go to higher education seems a ridiculous afterthought.

We need to rethink everything we do. We need to get beyond the notion that the early years are more about childcare than education

However, it’s not just a case of rethinking cash distribution between phases. We need to rethink everything we do. We need to get beyond the notion that the early years are more about childcare than child education, and we need to radically rethink the whole relationship between early education, childcare and social welfare. These should not be divided but interlinked.

Further, we need to rethink our approach to provision, from one of access to one of quality, says Sir Kevan Collins, CEO of the Education Endowment Foundation. “To me that’s a huge priority,” he says.

Thanks to advances in science, we now know more than ever about children’s brains. We know that they are more malleable when younger and that some early interventions can make a huge difference. We know that the early development of both cognitive and non-cognitive social skills is important for success in later life.

If we know all this, we have to change what we do - at both ends of the education system. Berating universities for not taking in sufficient numbers of disadvantaged pupils is to wilfully ignore the root of the problem. Unless we have a radical rethink, for many children the early years will already be too late.

@AnnMroz