Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the research published by Save the Children on 1 November 2016, what implications the findings of this report that children in nurseries without an early years teacher are almost 10 per cent less likely to meet the expected levels of development when they start school will have on her Department's policies.

On 3 March the Department for Education published an early years workforce strategy which seeks to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff.

For graduates we have begun the process to amend regulations so that early years teachers can lead teaching in nursery and reception classes in maintained schools. Over the longer term, we are going to consider how plans to strengthen QTS could offer positive opportunities for early years teachers. We also want to make sure that all settings serving disadvantaged children can access specialist graduates, so we are commissioning a feasibility study to explore how best to achieve this.

The strategy is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-workforce-strategy