£180m to improve children’s early years development

The government has announced up to £180 million of funding on programmes to benefit children’s development in the early years over three years.

The support includes early maths, language, and social development training for 10,0000 professionals through the third phase of the Professional Development Programme (PDP3). More than 1,300 professionals in 51 local authorities were provided with bespoke training designed to support the learning and development of children affected by the pandemic during the second phase of this programme, meaning around 20,000 children will have benefited from better trained, more confident staff;

An Expert and Mentors programme will be rolled out nationally to provide bespoke leadership support to 7,500 early years settings and childminders to address the impact of the pandemic on children in their care. This support is free and available across the country to eligible settings. Around 200 settings across the North of England, Lancashire and Yorkshire received support through a pilot of this programme this Spring.

There will be graduate-level specialist training leading to early years teacher status and support for nearly 6,000 early years professionals to achieve the National Professional Qualification in Early Years Leadership (NPQEYL) which is designed to support early years leaders to develop expertise in leading high-quality education and care, effective staff and organisational management, and support the recovery of children’s development that has been impacted through the pandemic.

There will also be training for up to 5,000 Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) to help identify children’s needs earlier so they have the right support and a new network of 18 Stronger Practice Hubs to support early years practitioners to adopt evidence-based practice improvements, build local networks for sharing effective practice and cultivate system leadership.

A new universal online child development training offer will be launched to help staff improve their knowledge and understanding of how pre-school children develop, as well as training for early years professionals to help parents and guardians encourage their children’s development at home.

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme will be continued during the academic year 2022-23 – building on the two-thirds of primary schools which have already benefitted from this investment, improving the speech and language skills of an estimated 90,000 children in reception classes.