Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the barriers to recruiting and retaining early years teachers; what steps his Department is taking to remove those barriers; and what the timetable is for those steps.

The early years’ workforce strategy was published in March 2017 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-workforce-strategy. It sets out government’s plans to help employers attract, retain and develop early years practitioners. The strategy outlines the barriers to recruiting and retaining graduate early years teachers, as well as the actions we are taking.