Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the rates of teacher retention amongst early years educators.

The turnover rate for all early years educators in private group-based and school-based providers is 16% and 7% respectively. A breakdown by qualification level is unavailable.

To boost recruitment and retention of early years teachers (EYTs) and meet the long-term ambition of having an EYT in every setting, the department will introduce EYT financial incentives worth a maximum of £4,500 per annum to support those working in the most disadvantaged communities. We expect the financial incentives to be available from autumn 2026 and will publish more detail in due course.

We are aiming to more than double the number of funded places on early years initial teacher training courses by 2028 and have introduced a new degree apprenticeship route to help more people become EYTs so that every child, no matter where they live, can benefit from high-quality early education.