July 2025

Early years education recovery

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Introduction

The release provides final management information (MI) data for the early years education recovery (EYER) programme. It provides MI data on the number of practitioners and settings that have registered to take part in, completed or been supported by specific strands of the EYER programme. A breakdown of registrations and completions by local authority is also available to download. 

This data is collected by the Department for Education (DfE) from each of the EYER programme delivery partners, with the exception of the child development training, which is collected directly by DfE.

Related information

Releases in this series

View releases (2) for Early years education recovery

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About this management information

The early years education recovery (EYER) programme provided workforce training, qualifications, and support for early years settings to help address the impact of the pandemic on the youngest and most disadvantaged children in England. The programme included a range of strands of activity that provide targeted support to practitioners, leaders and settings. 

Three strands are excluded from this publication:

  • National professional qualification in early years leadership (NPQEYL)
  • Early years initial teacher training (EYITT)
  • Home learning environment (HLE) training

For two of the strands of activity, national professional qualification in early years leadership and early years initial teacher training, management information data is published through other releases. 

NPQEYL data can be found here: Teacher and Leader development: ECF and NPQs, Academic year 2023/24 - Explore education statistics  

EYITT data can be found here: Initial teacher training performance profiles, Academic year 2022/23 - Explore education statistics 

HLE data will be provided separately as part of the Family Hubs / Start for Life programme.  

More detailed information on each strand can be found in the methodology section of this release.

The data collection window varied between the different strands of the programme. See each individual strand for more information about when data collection began and ended. 

Definitions

We refer in the publication to: 

Registrations

A registration is an instance of a setting or practitioner signing up to a strand within the dates provided, not the number of settings or practitioners that have completed a strand.

Completions

A completion is an instance of a practitioner successfully finishing a course or module (either individually or on behalf of a setting), or a setting having successfully received support. Completion will look different for each strand and the definition is refined in the relevant section.  

Group-based providers  

(Identified from the Ofsted register). Providers registered with Ofsted and operating on non-domestic premises. The two main types of group-based providers included in this report are:

Private group-based providers: These are private companies and include employer-run childcare for employees.  

Voluntary group-based providers: These are voluntary organisations, including community groups, charities, churches, or religious groups.

School-based providers

(Identified from the School Census). The two types of school-based providers are:

Maintained nursery schools: These are purpose-built maintained schools specifically for children in their early years and with a qualified teacher present.  

Nursery class childcare settings: These are other maintained schools, and non-maintained schools, offering nursery provision.

Childminders

Ofsted-registered and childminder agency (CMA) registered childminders providing early years care and operating in domestic settings. CMAs are organisations that can register and quality assure childminders and providers of ‘childcare on domestic premises’ as an alternative to registering with Ofsted.

Primary schools

All state-funded primary schools in England, including community schools, foundation and voluntary schools, academies, free schools, special schools and faith schools. 

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Early years child development training

The early years child development training is free online training aimed at practitioners working with children aged 0-4. The training comprises eight modules, which have been available for different lengths of time; the last module was released in September 2024. At the end of each module, users are invited to take part in an online assessment and on successful completion, receive a certificate. Users can retake the assessment as many times as needed until they pass. Not all who finish a module complete the assessment; here we define a completion as anyone who has successfully completed an end-of module assessment and gained a certificate. 

Users can complete the modules in any order at any time, based on the areas they have identified as being most important for their personal and professional development. However, it is recommended that they complete in numerical order.

While it is encouraged and beneficial to complete all modules, the training is effective for users who choose to complete individual ones. 

Here we show how many registered users have completed ‘1 or more modules’ as well as ‘3 or more modules’. A more comprehensive breakdown is available to download, including a breakdown of registrations and completions by local authority.

Not all users of the training are early years practitioners. As such, as of March 2025, at least 56,366 practitioners (from group based settings, school based settings, schools and childminders) had registered to take part in the training, at least 28,295 practitioners had completed 1 or more modules and at least 14,947 practitioners had completed 3 or more modules.  

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Professional development programme (PDP)

The early years professional development programme (PDP) provided Level 3 qualified early years practitioners with training to improve their skills and understanding in supporting young children’s development.

PDP phase 2 and 3 built on the previous phase of the programme, PDP1. Expanding the reach of phase 1, PDP2 was available to practitioners in 51 new local authorities to work with children at risk of falling behind due to COVID-19. Training commenced in January 2022 and practitioners had until July 2022 to complete the training. PDP3 was available to all local authorities in England, although priority was given to settings with high numbers of disadvantaged children (children who receive the early years pupil premium and children who take up the disadvantaged two-year-old offer) and settings that provide care to a child/children with an education, health and care plan. Training for PDP3 commenced in February 2023 and participants had a year to complete the programme. Final participants had until 26 February 2025 to complete. On completion, participants received a certificate.

Between October 2021 (when registrations for PDP2 opened) and March 2024 (when PDP3 registrations closed), 12,000 practitioners registered for PDP2 and PDP3.

Upon closure of the programme in February 2025, 7,813 practitioners had completed PDP2 and PDP3.

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Level 3 special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) qualification

The Level 3 SENCO training programme aimed to increase specialist expertise in special educational needs and disability (SEND).

Group-based and childminder settings were eligible for the training. School-based Early Years SENCOs were not eligible for the training as there was an expectation that the school would already have access to a SENCO, as mandated by the SEND Code of Practice. 

The qualification was open to Early Years SENCOs, or those due to take up the role, with an existing full and relevant Level 3 qualification and the support of an appropriate setting. Level 2 qualified childminders with some Level 3 training were also able to access the course for the final cohort. One SENCO per setting was eligible, although in extenuating circumstances more than one could gain the qualification, for example if a previously trained SENCO left the setting. 

At the end of the course there was an assessment, which had to be passed to complete the training. On completion, participants received a Level 3 SENCO qualification. Participants had until November 2024 to complete the training.

Between October 2022 and March 2024, 6,865 early years settings registered for the training. 

By the end of November 2024, 5,346 settings had a qualified SENCO through completion of the training.

A further breakdown of registrations and completions by practitioner is available for download. 

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Experts and mentors programme

The experts and mentors programme offered support to early years practitioners, leaders and settings by trained experts and mentors. School based and group-based settings, as well as childminders, were eligible. Settings received support over the course of one term, either face to face or virtually. The amount of support required by settings and childminders varied according to need. A setting was considered to have been supported if, as a minimum, they had attended at least one meeting with their expert and/or mentor. A childminder was considered to have been supported if, as a minimum, they had attended at least one mentoring session. The programme ended in July 2024. 

Published here are the number of unique setting registrations and the number of unique settings which received one term of support. In some cases, settings received support over more than one term. This release also includes data on the total number of instances of support. As the programme was only available to group/school-based settings initially, the data indicates greater engagement from group/school-based settings, who had been able to take up the support for longer. 

3,414 group/school-based settings registered to the programme between April 2022 and May 2024. 1,523 childminders registered between March 2023 and May 2024. 

As of 12th July 2024, 3,065 group/school-based settings received support, and 3,550 instances of support were reported. As of 3rd July 2024, 1,241 childminders received support, and 1,253 instances of support were reported.

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Stronger practice hubs (SPHs)

Early years stronger practice hubs provide advice, share good practice and offer evidence-informed professional development for early years practitioners within their networks. There are 18 stronger practice hubs nationwide, with two hubs in each government office region (GOR). Hubs build local networks by working with providers in their GORs. Included here are the number of settings that are members of a stronger practice hub network. 

Within their local networks, hubs support network members through a range of activities and work with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), who provide  evidence around early years pedagogy and processes that support practice change. Until March 2025, hubs also funded places on professional development programmes, delivered in collaboration with EEF. Included here are the number of settings recruited to these professional development programmes.

As of March 2025, the early years stronger practice hubs had 9,726 settings within their network membership and there were 2,341 settings recruited to professional development programmes funded by the hubs in collaboration with EEF.

Additional data is available to download. 

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Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI)

The Nuffield Early Language Intervention is a programme developed for reception-age children needing additional support with their speech, language and early literacy skills. This intervention is not available to early years group-based or childminder settings. It was first rolled out in September 2020. Following completion of CPD-certified training and an assessment of children’s language, the 20-week intervention is usually delivered by teaching assistants to 4-6 children per class, 5 times a week.

Since September 2020, 11,164 schools have registered for the programme giving them access to training, mentoring, support and LanguageScreen, an assessment and screening tool. As of March 2025, 10,644 schools continue to be registered. To date LanguageScreen has been used to assess children’s language 720,243 times. Schools are encouraged to use the screening tool initially to identify which children could benefit most from taking part in the NELI intervention, while follow-up screenings are to monitor children’s progress. As of March 2025, 47,982 children have completed the initial LanguageScreen assessment in academic year 2024/25. Across the five years of the funded programme, it is estimated that over 267,000 children will have benefited from receiving the NELI intervention to support their early language development by the end of 2024/25 academic year.

Only practitioners from schools that are registered for the NELI programme can access the training. There are 4 courses in total, which should be completed in numerical order. Course 1 provides training on oral language fundamentals and is therefore open to all practitioners at NELI schools. Courses 2 and 3 are designed for those implementing the NELI programme. The fourth course is a refresher course, which is not mandatory, but recommended for practitioners who completed their initial training in previous academic years.  

As of March 2025, 36,694 practitioners had registered for 1 or more courses, 30,157 practitioners had completed 1 or more courses and 15,904 had completed 3 or more courses. A more comprehensive list is available for download.

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Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

Management information

Management information describes aggregate information collated and used in the normal course of business to inform operational delivery, policy development or the management of organisational performance. It is usually based on administrative data but can also be a product of survey data. The terms administrative data and management information are sometimes used interchangeably.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Early years education recovery statistics and data:

Early Years Outcomes and Interventions Research

Email: EYERProject.MAILBOX@EDUCATION.GOV.UK
Contact name: Antony Brown

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