NEWS
Kit Malthouse named Secretary of State for Education
Cleverly has now been promoted to Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, while Donelan has been named as the new Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Alliance, said: “We welcome Kit Malthouse's appointment as education secretary and look forward to working closely with him in his new role. There’s no doubt he takes on the role at an extremely challenging time for the early years sector as we continue to battle through an early years funding crisis, severe recruitment and retention challenges and the impact of soaring costs. Now more than ever, it is vital that the new education secretary works with the sector to ensure that the sector can thrive, and not just survive: this means a focus on investing in the early years, not deregulating it.
“The early years is a vital part of the education sector and should be treated as such. We hope that Mr Malthouse will lead the way in valuing the sector and putting forward a long-term plan that is underpinned by adequate long-term funding, focuses on the needs of the child and recognises the early years workforce as the high-quality and hardworking educators they are.”
DfE confirms funding guidance for state funeral bank holiday
The Department for Education has confirmed that early years providers that closed for the Queen’s funeral on Monday 19 September should still receive funding from their local authority for the day.
The DfE said: “DfE statutory guidance (paragraph A4.37) is clear that local authorities should ensure providers are not penalised through withdrawal of funding for short term closures of a setting, for example, as a result of local or national elections or damage to the premises.
"Therefore, providers should not be penalised for closing as a result of the additional bank holiday, as is currently the case with other bank holidays. However, providers should be mindful of the impact on parents if they choose to close, and should be confident they can still provide the total number of hours parents agreed with the provider in their parental declaration.”
Government announces six month energy price cap for businesses
The government has announced plans to reduce bills for gas and electricity with the new Energy Price Guarantee. The guarantee will cap the cost of electricity and gas units so that a typical household will pay no more than £2,500 a year for the next two years.
This applies to all households in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Businesses, charities and public sector organisations have been promised “an equivalent guarantee for six months”. The government has said that this support will be reviewed in three months and may be extended for some sectors.
In September, the government denied reports in the Financial Times that businesses may have to wait until November 2022 for the support to begin. A spokesperson said that even if the scheme is not operational by October 2022, any payments would be backdated to ensure that businesses do not lose out.
Neil Leitch, CEO of the Alliance, commented: “While today’s announcement will give early years settings a little breathing space over the coming months, the fact that the government has only committed to supporting businesses over the next six months will do very little to ease their worries over the long-term.
“It’s clear that the government has failed to understand the immense pressure that businesses, including those in the early years sector, are under. For nurseries, pre-schools and childminding settings, years of underfunding and sharply rising inflation, alongside current energy cost increases, have pushed many settings to the brink and, on the basis of the information that we have so far, today’s announcement simply does not go far enough.
“With 4,000 early years settings forced to close in the last year alone, there is no time for the government to drag its feet on this. We urge the new prime minister to take urgent action to address acute financial challenges our sector is facing, before crisis turns into catastrophe.”
Liz Truss becomes Prime Minister
Liz Truss became the UK's next Prime Minister last month, after beating rival Rishi Sunak to become the new leader of the Conservative party.
Truss has been an MP since 2010 and previously held various cabinet roles including, most recently, minister for women and equalities and secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs.
From 2012-14 Truss served as early years minister at the DfE and oversaw plans to increase child:staff ratios, which were later dropped.
From 2012-14, Truss served as parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for Education, with responsibility for the early years. Here, she oversaw plans to increase the maximum number of children each adult could be responsible for, which were later blocked by then Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Alliance, said: “There is no doubt that Ms Truss takes on this role at a critical time for the early years. Rising energy bills, an acute recruitment and retention crisis and the lasting impact of the pandemic – all against a backdrop of years of government underfunding – have left our sector in crisis.
“If we are to have any chance of avoiding an early years catastrophe, it is vital that the new Prime Minister puts forward an ambitious plan for the early years: one that commits to adequate long-term funding, focuses on the needs of the child and recognises the early years workforce as the high-quality and hard-working educators they are.
“And while we know that during her time as early years minister, Ms Truss advocated for the relaxation of ratios, we hope against hope that the time that has passed since has given her a greater understanding of value of quality early education, and that the best way to solve the challenges facing the sector is not to deregulate it, but rather, to invest in it.
“For so many years now, the early years sector been undervalued, underfunded and under-appreciated. Now is a real opportunity to ensure that the sector rises up the government’s priority list rather than continuing to fall further down it. We hope that the new Prime Minister takes it.”
One in five children do not own a book, survey suggests
The National Literacy Trust’s annual Literacy Survey has revealed that one in five children aged between five- and eight-years-old in England do not own a book, while twice as many boys as girls said that they don’t enjoy reading at all.
75%
of children who have a book of their own enjoy reading
The National Literacy Trust surveyed 8,210 children in early 2022 about their reading habits. It also revealed that three quarters of children who have a book of their own enjoy reading, compared to two thirds of those who don’t. Only half of children surveyed said that they read every day.
Johnathan Douglass, chief executive of the National Literacy Trust, said: “Low literacy levels can hold you back at school, lock you out of the job market, affect your physical and mental health and even your life expectancy.
TUC warns that early years costs could rise to £2,000 a month by 2026
The TUC has warned that the cost of early years care for a child under two could rise to £2,000 a month by 2026, if costs continue to rise at current rates. Working with Coram Family and Childcare, the union said that early years costs in England have risen by nearly £3,000 a year since 2013 – up 26% from £11,285 a year to £14,226 a year in 2021.
In response, the TUC is calling for “a new deal for childcare and early years” to ensure that all children get the best start in life.
The union is asking the government for:
- universal, flexible high-quality early years care, available to all at the point at which paid maternity or parental leave ends
- a new deal for the early years workforce, starting with a new minimum wage for the sector
- a new social partnership, bringing together unions, government and employers to agree a fair wage for the sector
Neil Leitch, CEO of the Alliance, commented: “Now more than ever the rising cost of early education is putting an enormous strain on families across the country and sadly, as TUC’s analysis shows, with the cost-of-living crisis the situation is going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Every family should be able to afford early education, and early educators are doing all they can to make this happen, but when faced with years of severe underfunding and rising costs, many are left with no option but to increase fees just to stay afloat.”
Half of teenagers who do not pass GCSE English and maths were not meeting expected levels in EYFS, study suggests
Half of children who did not secure a pass in GCSE English language and maths were identified as being ‘behind’ in the EYFS Profile, according to a new study by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.
Just over a fifth of children in the cohort studied were not meeting the expected levels of development in ‘Communication, Literacy and Language’ and ‘Maths Development’.
But after 11 years of schooling, just one in three of these children went on to achieve a grade 4 or higher in both GCSE English language and maths – this compares to three in every four children who were meeting the expected levels in the EYFS Profile.
The researchers also looked at children who has been assessed as ‘delayed’ in the Bracken school readiness assessment at age three. They found that 38% of these children did not meet the expected levels of development in the EYFS Profile, compared to 14% of those found to be ‘school ready’ at age three.
The government has previously announced plans to increase average GCSE grades in English and maths up to 5, from a current average of 4.5.
Professor Elliot Major commented: “The forgotten fifth of pupils leaving school lacking basic English and maths skills is one of education’s biggest scandals. Our research lays bare the unravelling tragedy for the 100,000 teenagers who each year leave schools without basic skills.
“Government attempts to address this challenge will fail without high quality support for children during the pre-school years and greater efforts to identify, diagnose and most importantly respond to children falling behind at early stages of schooling. We should also consider introducing a basic threshold qualification for functional literacy and numeracy skills that all school leavers would be expected to pass.”
Neil Leitch, CEO of the Alliance, said: “With government spending per child lower during the early years than in any other period of a child's education, it's clear that the government's has its priorities all wrong. We hope that this study will help ensure ministers finally recognise the critical value of our sector, and the need to invest in it accordingly."
Early findings of the research, which was funded by the Monday Charitable Trust, have been shared with the government.