In the Government’s Spring Budget, it announced the single biggest investment in childcare ever made in England. These transformative reforms mean that the Government will invest £204 million in 2023-24 to uplift the rates for existing entitlements, rising to £288 million in 2024-25, with further uplifts beyond this. By 2027-28 this Government expects to be spending in excess of £8bn every year on the early years.
The Department wants to work closely with the sector to ensure early years providers are ready and able to offer these new entitlements – this is why the Department for Education (DfE) held a consultation on a number of proposals intended to offer early years providers increased flexibility and make the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework easier to navigate and implement in summer 2023. The proposals were informed by extensive engagement with the sector. The majority of the proposed regulatory changes included in the final consultation were suggested by early years providers to make it easier for their settings to utilise their workforce, helping to increase capacity ahead of the rollout of the new entitlements in April 2024.
The DfE has set out its official response to this consultation, which can be found here. The response sets out which proposals will be taken forward and which will not, following careful consideration by Ministers of all the consultation responses.
The Department wants to support providers to operate successfully and ensure practitioners can focus on providing children in their care with high-quality education, and have opportunities to progress their careers. This is why, after carefully considering all the responses, Ministers have decided to implement a number of changes to the EYFS. 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 recognises the hard work and dedication of staff across the sector in providing high-quality early education and childcare for young children and that is why DfE are making these changes to provide settings with much-needed flexibilities to relieve workforce pressures.
There were two proposals in particular which received more widespread concern from respondents, which Ministers have decided not to proceed with:
- Reducing the percentage of level 2 qualified staff required per ratio from ‘at least half’ to 30% or 40% of all other staff (group and school-based providers only).
- Changing the qualification requirements outside of peak hours (group and school-based providers only).
A summary of the changes is in the below table:
The department has also published an independent evaluation of the landmark 2021 EYFS reforms on early education. It found the changes to the curriculum have benefitted many settings, practitioners and children. Key findings included:
- 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.
- Leaders generally thought the 2021 EYFS reforms had improved the quality of teaching.
- The majority of settings reviewed and/or made changes to their curriculum and assessment approaches as a result of the EYFS reforms. Most commonly, this involved putting less focus on observation and tracking and spending more time with children instead.
- Many leaders thought the reforms were leading to better quality interactions with children.
You can read the full evaluation here: Early years foundation stage (EYFS) 2021 reforms: evaluation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
DfE want to ensure that early years providers understand what these changes mean for their settings, and want to work with our stakeholders to do this. DfE have provided some initial information below, which we hope will be useful in explaining the changes.
Do these changes mean that ratio requirements are being changed again?
The changes announced do not make any further changes to the number of adults required to look after children in setting. The changes announced offer providers increased flexibility around how providers deploy staff, such as the qualifications their practitioners must have to count within certain ratio requirements.
The changes build on the ratio changes announced at the Spring Budget. The following three changes to the EYFS came into force on 4 September 2023:
- a change to the current statutory minimum staff:child ratios in England for 2-year-olds from 1:4 to 1:5;
- clarifying that childminders can care for more than the currently-specified maximum of three young children, when caring for siblings of children they already care for, or when caring for their own child; and
- clarifying that “adequate supervision” while children are eating means that children must be within sight and hearing of an adult.
Who called for these changes and why have some been taken forward but not others?
The Department want to ensure providers can operate successfully and practitioners can focus on providing children in their care with a high-quality early education and have opportunities to progress their careers. The consultation included a broad range of proposals following extensive engagement with early years providers, sector organisations and membership bodies. The vast majority of proposals in the consultation had been called for by providers.
The consultation had 2667 responses. Alongside the consultation DfE also ran an extensive survey of providers to understand how providers might change their practise if these changes were introduced.
Ministers have carefully considered all the responses to the consultation and the results of the provider survey, and they have decided to proceed with the majority of the proposals. However there were two proposals in particular which received more widespread concern from respondents, which Ministers have decided not to proceed with:
- Reducing the percentage of level 2 qualified staff required per ratio from ‘at least half’ to 30% or 40% of all other staff (group and school-based providers only).
- Changing the qualification requirements outside of peak hours (group and school-based providers only).
More information can be found in the consultation response.
Are the learning and development requirements changing again?
There are no significant changes to Section 1 or Section 2 of the EYFS, which were the focus of the 2021 reforms. DfE have also published an evaluation report which looked at the effectiveness of the 2021 reforms. This independent evaluation conducted by found 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 leaders generally thought the 2021 EYFS reforms had improved the quality of teaching. You can read all the findings of this evaluation here.
There have been quite a few changes to the EYFS in recent year. How are you helping providers understand and implement these changes?
The majority of the changes being made to the EYFS will come into force for January 2024, to give the sector time to use the new flexibilities ahead of the first roll out of the new entitlements, in April 2024. In the vast majority of cases, the January 2024 changes set new minimum requirements which providers may choose to utilise in their setting. The changes that will come into force in January build on the changes to staff: child ratios for two-year-olds, the childminder ratio flexibilities, and the clarification on wording around supervision whilst eating which came into force in September 2023.
DfE will work with stakeholders, including representative organisations and local authorities to ensure settings have the information and support they need to respond to any changes to the EYFS. We will be arranging events and webinars other the next few months to explain in detail the changes. These will be promoted via the Foundation Years Website.
What else is DfE doing to support Early Years providers to recruit and retain staff?
We understand that the recruitment and retention of qualified staff is a key issue for the early years sector. Driving up interest in early years careers and ensuring there are enough opportunities for career development is a priority for the government.
Alongside the changes being made to the EYFS, we are developing a range of new workforce initiatives and removing barriers to entering the sector by ensuring qualifications are suitable and easy to understand. This includes launching a competition to run Early Years Skills Bootcamps, held over the summer, that would include a pathway to an accelerated level 3 Early Years apprenticeship. We are also considering new degree apprenticeship routes so everyone from junior staff to senior leaders can easily move into a career in the sector.
We have taken action to boost workforce numbers by collaborating with the Department for Work and Pensions and the Careers & Enterprise Company to promote the importance and value of a career in early years, and will launch a new national campaign early next year to support the recruitment and retention of talented staff.
If you have any further questions, please send these to eyfs.consultation@education.gov.uk.