Labour commits to more nursery provision in schools

On 10 June, Labour announced their plans for “over three thousand new nursery classes across England to open up access to childcare hours for families”, with “spare classrooms” in schools to be used either for nursery provision delivered by schools, or by PVIs. According to the Guardian, this will include funding of £140m to refurbish […]

Lib Dems commit to tripling early years pupil premium

The Lib Dems have published their manifesto, including commitments to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law and to tackle child poverty. On early education and childcare specifically, they aim to “close the attainment gap by giving disadvantaged children aged three and four an extra five free hours a […]

Early Education and Childcare Coalition manifesto calls for “rescue and reform”

Today, Friday 17 May, the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) has launched its new manifesto, with proposals to rescue and reform England’s early education and childcare sector. Early Education are one of the 30 organisations in the coalition which brings together representatives of parents and children, practitioners, providers, employers and the business sector. To […]

Ofsted’s Annual Review highlights importance of early years workforce

Ofsted’s latest annual review highlights the impact of recruitment and retention challenges and finds a link between inspection outcomes and the proportion of graduates in a setting. It recognises the work which settings are doing to address the impact of the pandemic on young children. It found that 96% of providers on the early years […]

Early Years Foundation Stage: No place for men?

by Clarissa Frigerio Why are there so few men teaching in the early years? I have worked in the profession for almost 9 years, and I was lucky to teach internationally (Italy, USA, and UK). Only once in that time I worked with a man. But this should not have been a surprise, as latest […]

Priorities for England’s new early years minister

The tenth early years minister in ten years, Kelly Tolhurst, is now in post. It’s good news that early years is part of a Minister of State’s portfolio rather than given to a more junior post.  However, the rest of her brief is extensive, leaving a risk that early years is not a priority.  We […]

The Schools White Paper: highlighting the gap between early years and schools policy

Government has today published its Schools White Paper “Opportunity for all”. We welcome the fact that early years gets a few mentions: However, the “key facts” only list the numbers of children in the school system, not the 1.5m in early years provision. There is mention of where children’s outcomes are improving, but no mention […]

How do we increase the graduate workforce in Early Years?

DfE has just published new figures on the number of new entrants to Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT).  This is the route that leads to Early Years Teacher Status, which does not have parity of career options to Qualified Teacher Status, despite requiring the same entry requirements and following a broadly similar programme of study.  […]

An Early Years qualification for primary school headteachers? by Julie Fisher

A call for universal expertise for applications to primary school headship Transition for children from the Reception class into Year 1 in England remains fraught with challenge. The absence of national principled guidance makes this age group particularly vulnerable to inappropriate expectations and targets. Since the introduction of the National Curriculum the pedagogical direction of […]