Category - Early Years

Two months on from the government’s expansion of 30-hours funded childcare, demand has never been higher. Some of our nurseries are already full until 2027 – a clear sign of how vital early years education has...

The early years workforce continues to face substantial recruitment and retention challenges despite recent growth in staff numbers, according the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). Providers have...

Research from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) think-tank predicts that better-off parents will be the main beneficiaries of the government’s funded childcare offer for working families, which completes its roll out...

The long-term decline in childminders has continued over the past year, latest Ofsted figures reveal.
Read the full article on this link to Children & Young People Now

Sure Start children’s centres generated “widespread and long-lasting benefits” for children that have created financial savings to the UK economy that “could be twice as high as its costs”, a report by the Institute of...

The government must act urgently to tackle the early years workforce crisis or risk families – many in deprived areas – being turned away for the funded childcare entitlement, the YMCA is warning. Read the full article...

A plan to “make play normal” again – including a call for play to become a statutory duty – has been launched in Westminster. Charity Play England’s 10-year strategy aims to reverse “phone-based childhoods” and wants to...