Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by Ofsted COVID-19 series: briefing on early years, October 2020, published on 10 November, what plans they have to support children in early years settings whose communication and language skills have fallen behind since the first COVID-19 national lockdown.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are spending up to £9 million of the National Tutoring Programme fund, in the 2020/21 academic year, on the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, a robustly evidenced programme proven to improve oral language skills in the reception year.

The recent Spending Review has confirmed that the department will fund further expansion of an evidence-based reception year early language programme in the 2021/22 academic year.

We are also investing £20 million in a high-quality professional development programme for early years practitioners to drive up standards in maths, early language, and literacy amongst pre-reception children in disadvantaged areas of 51 local authorities.

Additionally, over 3,000 early adopter schools are implementing the reforms to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) from September 2020, ahead of statutory roll out in September 2021. One of the main aims of the revised framework is to improve early years outcomes for all children, particularly disadvantaged children, in the critical areas that build the foundation for later success, such as language development.

As part of the reforms, we have revised the educational programmes to strengthen teaching practice in communication and language, providing a deeper focus on building vocabulary to address the word gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Further information on the early adopter EYFS framework can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896810/EYFS_Early_Adopter_Framework.pdf.