Stronger Practice Hubs will launch in November 2022 as part of the Department for Education’s (DfE) early years education Covid-19 recovery package.
Each Hub will support other early years settings to improve outcomes for children in their local area across the EYFS, addressing the impact of the pandemic on areas such as personal social and emotional development (PSED), communication and language, and early literacy and maths, by sharing effective practice, learning from evidence, and building local networks.
Hubs will be evenly distributed across England, with the ambition of establishing two Hubs in each region, with 18 in total.The programme will be funded for two years until late 2024.
NCB will be leading relationships with the new Hubs, including providing oversight and quality assurance and running the selection process.
The organisation will be supported by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), which will be the evidence partner for the programme, providing information about the evidence around early years approaches and processes.
Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the NCB, said, ‘We are delighted to be coordinating the new Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs on behalf of the DfE. This work will allow the best settings to share their approaches with others in their local area, as well as grounding their work in the research evidence on what early years support is the most effective. We look forward to working with early years settings across England to improve and share their outstanding work.’
From today, early years settings can apply to become Stronger Practice Hubs and support other settings in their area with adopting evidence-based practice improvements.
Eligible settings must be:
- a group-based early years setting, including school-based (local authority maintained or schools belonging to Multi-Academy Trusts where the application comes from the school rather than the Trust itself) and private, voluntary, or independent (PVI)
- currently rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted
- providing pre-reception early education
Settings can apply to become Stronger Practice Hubs here
