Call for early years teachers to lead nurseries in poorer areas

The Government should also ensure that settings are given sufficient funding so that they are able to recruit and retain qualified early years teachers in the profession.

The Fair Education Alliance Report Card 2016/17 analyses progress in closing the gap in social mobility between the poorest children and their peers over the past year.

It warns that the poorest children are more than a year behind their better-off peers at GCSE, and raises concerns that underfunding risks widening this gap further.

The development of the childcare and early education workforce should remain ‘a top priority’ it says, adding that the Government should use the recently published Workforce Strategy to reverse the fall in early years teacher recruitment.

The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) is calling on the Government to commit to ensuring that every group setting serving the 30 per cent most deprived areas in England is led by an early years teacher or equivalent by 2020.

It also calls for a commitment from the Government that national spending on schools funding should not decrease in real terms on a per pupil basis.

The recommendations and priorities in the report card were developed and voted on by members of the Fair Education Alliance, a coalition of more than 80 organisations in business, education and the third sector. Members include the universities UCL Institute of Education and Oxford University, teaching unions, PACEY, the National Children’s Bureau, the National Literacy Trust, and the CBI.

On the goal to narrow the primary school literacy and attainment gap there has been some progress since the last report.

The gap at primary school is measured using key stage 2 reading and maths tests taken at age 11. ?