Thousands more staff needed in early years sector to meet demand

Recent research by the innovation charity Nesta shows that the early years sector needs an additional 27,500 practitioners to deliver the expansion of free childcare hours to under-3s, announced in the Spring Budget 2023. This represents an increase in demand of 8% and further challenges an over-burdened sector that has lost 3% of the workforce since 2019.

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Ofsted report focuses on the three prime areas of learning

Continuing its series of research relating to early years education Ofsted has published its report 'Best Start in life part 2: the prime areas of learning'. The aim of the report is to support practitioners in raising the quality of education within early years and follows on from Part 1 which covered staffing, curriculum and pedagogy.

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Scotland’s Programme for Government: extending funded ELC offer

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf https://www.gov.scot/news/growing-the-economy-and-tackling-poverty/ He will accelerate the expansion of the two-year-old offer by starting to phase in families with two-year-olds from next year, focusing on tackling child poverty. This will be subject to families meeting specific criteria and will not be universal yet.

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David Johnston appointed as new Children and Families minister

The MP for Wantage and Didcot, David Johnston OBE has been appointed as the new parliamentary under-secretary of state for education to replace Claire Coutinho as part of the Prime Minister’s mini reshuffle today. He is the eighth minister with responsibility for childcare in the last five years.

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