Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that early years staff have access to adequate safety training; and what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of safety requirements within the Ofsted framework.

The safety of our youngest children is our utmost priority and the department continually monitors and reviews safeguarding requirements to ensure children are kept as safe as possible.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements early years providers must meet to ensure that children are kept healthy and safe. It is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c024cb8c6d992f23edd79c/Early_years_foundation_stage_statutory_framework_-_for_group_and_school-based_providers.pdf.pdf. In September 2025, changes were introduced to strengthen safeguarding requirements in the EYFS, including clearer expectations on safeguarding training.

A new safeguarding training annex now sets out clearly what safeguarding training must cover and to support providers, a free online safeguarding training package is being developed by the department with the NSPCC, aligned to the updated requirements.

Ofsted inspects early years providers under the Education Inspection Framework against the full range of EYFS requirements. Inspectors assess whether providers are meeting statutory requirements and taking appropriate action to keep children safe.