Category - Early Years

An incoming Labour government must revive the 1997 spirit of Sure Start and put babies at the heart of policies if it is to achieve its goals, a coalition of charities has said. The First 1001 Days Movement, a coalition...

Regulation of private early years providers needs to be strengthened to tackle “excess profiteering” and improve quality, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). Through its proposed tougher regulatory...

The National Day Nurseries Association’s (NDNA) 2024 State of the Sector survey, conducted in January, that 54 per cent of 448 nurseries in England are “unlikely to offer any additional places to two-year-olds or...

The gap between the government’s £4.3 billion investment in the expansion of funded childcare and the cost of delivering the hours for providers could lead to a £5 billion shortfall, a think tank has warned. The Women’s...

The Sutton Trust says disadvantaged children are being hit hardest by this trend “with learning gaps between the most and least well-off young children set to widen in the coming years”. Its policy briefing has raised...

Health visiting services lack the capacity to support increasing numbers of vulnerable children due to a shortage of thousands of workers, a survey warns. Read the full article on this link to Children & Young...

A flagship government childcare scheme is at risk of “falling apart” with parents struggling to access new free hours and nurseries in the dark about if they can afford to provide care, according to charities. Read the...

The UK has some of the highest childcare costs in the world. Parents are finding it hard to get nursery places and report quitting full-time work to care for their children. Nurseries are closing faster than new ones...