Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to boost the percentage of children aged five achieving expected level on literacy, communication, and maths early learning goals as a supporting metric for mission 5 in the Levelling Up white paper.

The government has reformed the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) to help give children the best start in life. The reforms aim to improve outcomes for children at age five, particularly disadvantaged children, in the critical areas that build the foundations for later success, such as language development, literacy and numeracy. We are investing up to £180 million in early years education recovery.

Through investing in our English hubs and maths hubs programmes, we will improve the teaching of English and mathematics in schools, including for children in Reception. English hubs are currently delivering intensive support to over 1,000 partner schools, reaching approximately 50,000 pupils in Reception and year 1. Maths hubs programme includes our £100 million Teaching for Mastery programme, which is bringing mastery teaching to 11,000 schools across England by 2023.

To support schools to meet existing expectations on early reading, we published ‘The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy’. The guidance is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-reading-framework-teaching-the-foundations-of-literacy.