Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of children entering school with speech and language difficulties or delay following the closure of early years settings during the covid-19 outbreak.

The department is investing in early years education recovery to address concerns around lost education. We do not have a current assessment of the number of children entering school with speech and language difficulties or delay. We will have updated data on communication and language development later this year.

Improving training for early years practitioners is one of the key levers for driving up quality in early education settings, and language development is key to this.

We are investing £180 million of recovery support in the early years sector. This includes £153 million for evidence based professional development for early years practitioners, including through new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development for the youngest children, £10 million for a second phase of the Early Years Professional Development Programme in academic year 2021/22 (targeted to support early years staff in settings to work with disadvantaged children), and up to £17 million for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI). NELI is a proven programme aimed at reception aged children needing extra support with their speech and language development and is proven to help children make around three months of additional progress. Two thirds of primary schools have signed up, the majority of these being schools with the highest levels of disadvantage, reaching an estimated 90,000 children.

As part of our recovery strategy, we will also be significantly increasing the numbers of qualified level 3 special educational needs coordinators, to support better early identification and support of special educational needs and disabilities.