Nursery World - Early years attendance improves - but numbers still lower than pre-Covid

The latest Department for Education (DfE) statistics show that while the number of children in early years settings has risen since last month, attendance is still down on pre-pandemic levels.

The latest DfE statistics show that on 14 October, 751,000 children were attending childcare, which continues to be lower than prior to the pandemic PHOTO Adobe Stock

The DfE estimates that on 14 October, 751,000 children were attending childcare – about 59 per cent of the number that usually attend settings during term-time.

This is an increase of 54,000 children on the number that were attending settings on 16 September however.

The DfE says that due to many children attending settings on a part-time basis, it would not expect all children to be in attendance on the day of the data collection.

On a typical day in the autumn term, it expects attendance to be 912,000, due to different and part-time patterns of childcare during the week.

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