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Family and Childcare Trust responds to Education Secretary Justine Greening’s speech

Megan Jarvie, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the Family and Childcare Trust, said:

 

"We welcome the Department for Education’s announcement of a £60 million funding package aimed at helping local children get the best start in life. The early years are vital in setting children up to achieve at school and beyond and improving social mobility.

"We want to see a focus on using the new funding package to develop a graduate-led early years workforce to deliver high quality early education to children. Evidence shows that early years graduates have a significant impact on the quality of early years education and that only high quality early education helps to improve children’s outcomes1. However, we know that England’s early years workforce has a low proportion of graduates compared to other developed nations –some 43 per cent of three and four year olds in private and not-profit day nurseries and 60 per cent in pre-schools did not have a graduate working with them in 2015."

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Contact: Mark Bou Mansour, Communications and Campaigns Manager. Telephone: 0207 940 7535, mobile: 07538 334 772, email: mark@familyandchildcaretrust.org.

About the Family and Childcare Trust  

The Family and Childcare Trust aims to make the UK a better place for families. We are a leading national family charity in the field of policy, research and advocacy on childcare and family issues, with over 40 years’ experience. Our on-the-ground work with parents and providers informs our research and campaigns. We focus on the early years and childcare because they are crucial to boosting children’s outcomes throughout life and supporting parents to work.