Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the National College for Teaching and Leadership has ever reached the recruitment target of 2,400 early years teachers per year; and if he will make a statement.

The government determines the supply of newly trained teachers with Qualified Teacher Status through a Teacher Supply Model.

There is no equivalent supply model to determine the number of early years teachers required and there is not a target set for recruitment of such teachers. We continue to make early years initial teacher training places available based on demand.

Experimental statistics on new entrants to early years initial teacher training for the academic year 2017/18 are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-training-trainee-number-census-2017-to-2018.