Judith Cummins – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Judith Cummins on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of children in (a) Bradford South constituency and (b) Yorkshire and the Humber who do not meet the expected levels of speech and communication skills in the Early Years Foundation Stage assessment.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The Government wants all children, regardless of their background, to have access to high quality early education and childcare, as we know this is what makes the difference to outcomes. To help close the gap between disadvantaged children and their better off peers, we introduced the two-year-old entitlement of 15 hours of free early education in September 2013. Already 70% of two-year-olds are benefitting from the free early education entitlement. We have also invested over £50 million in the Early Years Pupil Premium, to further help disadvantaged children in the early years.

While the Department does not carry out analysis at constituency level on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile results, information at Bradford local authority level shows a significant increase in the proportion of children reaching the expected level in communication and language. The most recent EYFS Profile results show that the gap has narrowed:

• For Bradford local authority: 78.3% in 2015, compared to 71.2% in 2014 and 66.6% in 2013; and
• For the Yorkshire and Humberside region: 79.5% in 2015, compared to 75.7% in 2014 and 69.9% in 2013.

The national picture shows a similar trend with the gap narrowing to 80.3% in 2015 from 77.1% in 2014 and 72.2% in 2013.