Nursery World - Early years attendance levels remain lower than expected for summer term

Attendance levels at early years settings are running at lower rates than usual, although slightly up on the previous week, official figures show.

Nursery attendance has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, statistics show PHOTO Adobe Stock

The Department for Education estimates that on 29 April, 897,000 children were attending early years settings, about 55 per cent of the number of children who usually attend childcare in term time.

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

On a typical day in the summer term the department said it expects attendance to be 1,154,000, due to different and part-time patterns of childcare during the week. It estimates that the 897,000 children currently attending early years settings is approximately 78 per cent of the usual daily level.

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