Early years and childcare expansion: key updates from Susie Owen, DfE Director of Early Years, Childcare, Families and Analysis

Spring Budget

In the 2023 Spring Budget, the Government announced significant new investments to expand the early education entitlements from 2024-25, together with funding uplifts in 2023-24 and 2024-25 for the existing entitlement offers. This expansion was designed to support more working families to access high-quality, affordable early education and childcare. The full package of reforms to childcare announced at spring budget can be found on GOV.UK. We are committed to working closely with the sector to deliver these reforms, and keep you updated on progress.

Latest Updates

On 1 September 2023, the updated EYFS came into force, allowing settings to increase the number of two year olds a member of staff could look after (at one time) from 1:4 to 1:5, and strengthening the requirement on supervision of children while eating.

In addition, we provided £204 million of additional funding to local authorities to increase 2023-24 funding rates for 2-year-olds and 3- and 4-years-olds.

Earlier this month, we announced the eligibility criteria for the childminders start-up grants scheme which will open for applications by 30 November 2023. The government will offer £600 for those registering with Ofsted and £1200 for those registering with a childminder agency if they complete registration between 15 March 2023 and 31 March 2025, and then apply for the grant. Further guidance will be published when the scheme launches at the end of November.

We also published the independent evaluation of the 2021 early education reforms to the learning and development, and assessment requirements within the EYFS. Thanks to all the early years educators who have worked hard to implement these reforms. The evaluation found that the majority of leaders and staff thought the 2021 EYFS reforms have had or will have a positive effect on children’s learning and development, and that leaders generally thought the 2021 EYFS reforms had improved the quality of teaching in their settings. We are looking at next steps to support quality in settings.

Changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework

Over the summer, DfE consulted on proposals to improve flexibilities for early years settings on changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

The EYFS: Regulatory Changes consultation received 2,667 replies and the DfE has published its official response. The response sets out which proposals Ministers have decide will be taken forward and which will not.

The Department want to support providers to operate successfully and ensure practitioners can focus on providing children in their care with a high-quality early education, and have opportunities to progress their careers. That is why, after carefully considering all the responses, Ministers have decided to implement a number of changes to the EYFS framework. Our intention is to implement the majority of the changes from January 2024, subject to parliamentary procedure. This includes no longer requiring level 3 practitioners to hold a level 2 maths qualification and creating provider specific versions of the EYFS.

The Department will ensure that existing guidance is updated to reflect the changes to the EYFS and will work closely with the sector to ensure that practitioners understand how they can best implement the changes.

There were two proposals in particular which received widespread concern from respondents, which Ministers have decided not to proceed with; changes to the percentage of level 2 qualified staff required per ratio and changing the qualification requirements outside of peak hours.

Funding

In July, we consulted on funding arrangements for the new entitlements, which will begin delivery from April 2024, with 15 hours funded early education for eligible working parents whose children turn two before 1 April 2024. From September 2024, this will extend to 15 hours for eligible working parents whose children turn nine months before 1 Sept 2024. We would like to thank everyone who submitted a response.

Ministers have been carefully considering the responses to this consultation and we will be publishing the response and confirming the final LA funding rates for the new entitlements shortly.

Wraparound childcare

We have published local authority funding allocations and a programme handbook for the wraparound childcare programme. This programme aims to ensure all parents of primary school children are able to access term-time childcare in their local area from 8am – 6pm by September 2026, with rollout of the programme commencing in September 2024. If you are a provider that would like to get involved in the wraparound programme, please contact your local authority to find out more about the delivery plan for your local area.

Publication of local authority capital funding quantum

Additionally, we have announced £100 million capital funding for local authorities to support delivery of the reforms to the early years’ entitlements and wraparound provision.

Engagement

Over the coming months, we will run regional webinars for local authorities covering wraparound and the wider early years programme and will continue to create opportunities for local authorities and providers to engage with the DfE to ensure they are ready for the early years entitlements expansion.

Workforce

We know that growing the workforce is key to enabling providers to successfully deliver the extended entitlements programme. As well as supporting providers to recruit and retain staff through the recently announced EYFS changes, we are working with the sector to develop a range of new workforce initiatives. This includes the recent launch of a digital and social media campaign promoting Early Years Educator apprenticeships, and continuing to develop a national, multi-channel broadcast recruitment campaign launching in early 2024 which will boost interest in early years careers and champion those already working in the sector.

Alongside this, the department ran a competition over the summer to invite training providers, working alongside early years settings, to deliver Early Years Skills Bootcamps from 2024. Skills Bootcamps are free, flexible, employer-led courses of up to 16 weeks in sectors with skills shortage vacancies. They give adults aged 19+ the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills and fast track learners to a guaranteed interview with an employer. The competition closed at the end of July 2023 and evaluation and moderation has now concluded. We will provide an update on the outcome of the competition in due course.

Childcare Choices website

The Childcare Choices campaign is now live with messaging about both new and existing support offers which directs parents to the Childcare Choices website, which has now been updated to allow parents to find out what they will be eligible for and when to apply.  They will also be able to sign up to a new newsletter which will give further updates as the expansion is rolled out.

We are grateful for the continued support to promote the campaign and its offers. We have published a new toolkit which contains a range of resources to use in promoting the offers to parents such as social media posts and text for newsletters. You can also help us bring the campaign to life with case studies – we’re collecting a bank of these to use on social and digital channels to support the campaign. Send your ideas or questions to anca.coman@education.gov.uk on the Childcare Choices campaign team.

Foundation Years is funded by the Department for Education and brought to you by Coram Family and Childcare and Hempsall’s.