Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of early intervention on children's readiness to start school.

The government’s Plan for Change sets out our ambition for a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn. The department will measure progress through 75% of children at the end of reception reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.

Antenatal classes, health visitors, parenting support, baby and toddler groups and access to affordable, high quality early education and childcare are vital to guiding parents, improving the home learning environment and supporting development.

A stable family environment is the foundation for better health, education and earnings. Studies have found that the most influential home environment variable on children’s cognitive development at age three and four, and academic outcomes at age seven, is the quality of the home learning environment during preschool years.

Children need access to high quality early education and evidence-based programmes designed specifically for this early stage of development. An impact evaluation of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) found that children who receive NELI make, on average, four months of additional progress in oral language skills, and seven months for those children on free school meals.