Production of this statistics publication
- The National Statistics Code of Practice requires we take reasonable steps to ensure that our published or disseminated statistics protect confidentiality.
- Where it is applicable to apply suppression, we suppress cell counts and totals below 6 and sometimes use secondary suppression and rounding of regional totals to preserve confidentiality. Because of rounding, totals in text and in tables may not always equal the sum of their component parts. Similarly, differences quoted in text may not always be the same as differences shown in underlying data files. This suppression is consistent with the Departmental statistical policy.
- Where is it decided disclosure control is necessary to protect confidentiality, symbols are used in the underlying data files as follows:
c below 6
0 the original figure submitted was zero
. data not applicable
.. data not available
- represents less than 0.5%
Calculated data items
The statistics publication covers:
- Numbers of children benefiting from funded early education
This is a count of children in receipt of funded early education. Where children received funded early education at more than one private, voluntary or independent (PVI) provider (of funded early education), they have been counted only once. The PVI provider where the child took the majority of their funded hours is the provider reported in the figures. A child splitting their funded hours between a maintained school and a PVI provider may be counted more than once. This does not impact on the national take up rate.
For PVI providers, counts are taken from the Early Years Census data. Counts for other providers are taken from the School Census and School Level Annual School Census data
This is the percentage of children broken down by number of funded hours taken[1], where the funded hours have been grouped together into bands. Children at general hospital schools have been excluded from these figures as their data is collected through the aggregate School Level Annual School Census and individual funded hours are not reported. The percentages in each provider group sum to 100%, although this can vary due to rounding of percentages to 1 decimal place.
- Number of children benefiting by provider type
This is a count of providers by type of provider, and also the number of children benefiting from some funded early education at those providers. Special schools include maintained and non-maintained special schools and general hospital schools.
The number of children benefiting from some funded early education is calculated as the head count of children in receipt of some funded early education. Where they are receiving funded early education at more than one PVI provider, they have only been counted once at the provider where they take the majority of their funded hours. In the 2020 Early Years Census there were 10,785 children who split their funded entitlement across more than one PVI provider and 8,442 who split their extended entitlement across more than one PVI provider.
When a child splits their entitlement over more than one provider, the provider where they spend the majority of their time is counted. As childminders often provide wrap-around care, the count of childminders is adversely affected by this methodology. For the 2-year-old entitlement and funded early education entitlement, 96% of the providers removed are childminders. For the extended entitlement, 83% of the providers removed are childminders.
- Ofsted Inspection ratings
To report against Ofsted inspection ratings, we match the Early Years Census data and the School Census data to Ofsted inspection ratings.
Ofsted provided us with the latest outcomes of early years inspections up to 31 December 2019. Common variables between the Early Years Census and Ofsted’s outcomes of early years inspections dataset are LA identifier, provider name, and Ofsted unique reference number (URN). There are inconsistencies between data on provider name on the Early Years Census and Ofsted’s outcomes dataset, which made it difficult to use this variable for matching purposes. Matching was carried out using LA number and Ofsted EY URN only.
Where a match could not be found between the Early Years Census and Ofsted’s outcomes of early years inspections dataset, the relevant cases were then matched to the outcomes of school inspections dataset, again using the Ofsted URN. The outcomes of school inspections dataset was used because some EY providers return a school’s URN rather than an EY URN because the early education is run under the auspices of the governing body of the school and therefore fall under the school’s registration. In such cases, we used the Early Years Foundation Stage inspection rating. If no Early Years Foundation Stage inspection rating was reported then we used the school’s overall effectiveness rating.
Independent schools are inspected by either Ofsted, the Independent Schools Inspectorate or the School Inspection Service; therefore some of these providers were listed under the ‘No match to Ofsted’ category. Where the school was inspected by Ofsted and a match was found, we used the relevant inspection rating for these schools.
For maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, School Census data was matched to Ofsted school inspection data using a combination of the LA number and the establishment number. Independent schools were excluded as these were already included in the Early Years Census return. Academy converters which were yet to be inspected under their new status were included under the ‘No match to Ofsted’ category. The school changes its URN when it becomes an academy.
Inspections ratings from private, voluntary and independent providers were combined with those from maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools to produce the tables.
The percentages are based upon the total number of 2-, or 3- and 4-year-olds receiving funded early education at providers rated outstanding, good, satisfactory/requires improvement, or inadequate, as a percentage of children at providers where have found a match and an inspection rating (and therefore excluding children at providers where we do not have an inspection rating).
- 2-year-old eligible population estimates
DfE receives list of families with 2-year-olds who meet eligibility criteria of the 2-year-old entitlement, in order to support targeting of eligible families. The lists are provided by DWP, based on matching of benefit claim data held by DWP with child benefit records held by HMRC or derived from the Universal Credit Full Service claim process. Lists are provided to DfE at 7 points throughout the year and cover those eligible in the following 3 terms.
For this publication, the list provided in November 2019 is used to provide the eligible population for January 2020. This list contains children in families who meet the eligibility criteria in November and will be of eligible age in the term starting in the following January. The population of those not on the list is not estimated.
The families on the list are potentially eligible for the entitlement through the following:
- Income Support;
- Income Based Jobseeker’s Allowance;
- Income Related Employment and Support Allowance;
- The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit;
- Child Tax Credit and/or Working Tax Credit and have an annual income no more than £16,190 as assessed by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs;
- the Working Tax Credit four-week run-on (the payment someone receives for a further four weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit); or,
- The child attracts the Disability Living Allowance.
- Universal Credit (Full Service only) – for places starting in the summer term of 2019 (on or after 1st April 2019), or any subsequent term, a parent will appear if they are entitled to Universal Credit and have an annual net earned income equivalent to and not exceeding £15,400, assessed on up to three of the parent’s most recent Universal Credit assessment periods.
The list does not include anyone eligible through the following criteria:
- Supported under Part 6 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
- Looked after by the local authority;
- Have left the care of the local authority;
- Have a statement of Special Educational Need or an Education, Health and Care Plan
- Entitled to Universal Credit (Live Service)
There was a change in how the lists were produced in April 2019 (for the term starting September 2019). Before April 2019, children in families receiving the Universal Credit Full Service were not included on the lists. From April 2019, children in families receiving the Universal Credit Full Service[2] are included on the lists, therefore are included in the eligible population for this publication for the first time. 2-year-old basis for funding
- Early years pupil premium
Early years pupil premium (EYPP) was introduced for disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-olds in April 2015. Children will be eligible for EYPP if they are receiving the funded early education entitlement and meet the eligibility criteria of their family being in receipt of specified benefits or the child is looked after by a local authority or no longer looked after by the local authority as a result of an adoption order, special guardianship order or a child arrangement order which specifies with whom the child should live. In April 2018 eligibility for EYPP changed as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit. More details on the eligibility criteria can be found in the Early years entitlements: local authority funding of providers – Operational guide 2019-2020.
Local authorities returned the total number of staff (qualified and unqualified) who work with children under 5 at PVI providers with at least one child receiving funded early education at the time of the census. They also returned the number of staff with the following qualifications, recording the highest qualification held by each member of staff:
- full and relevant early years Level 2 qualification
- full and relevant early years Level 3 qualification and not in a managerial role
- full and relevant early years Level 3 qualification and in a managerial role
- early years professional status (EYPS)
- early years teacher status (EYTS)
- qualified teacher status (QTS)
The number of staff with each of the qualifications is reported in the statistics publication along with the number of providers and children benefiting at providers with staff with graduate statuses (EYPS, EYTS and QTS).
Ethnicity was collected on a mandatory basis for the first time in 2017 for all children in PVI settings and under 5s in schools. It records the ethnicity as stated by the parent / guardian and / or child (in the case of a child without a parent / guardian). Ethnicity is a personal awareness of a common cultural identity and relates to how a person feels and not how they are perceived by others. It is a subjective decision as to which category a person places themselves in and does not infer any other characteristics such as religion or country of origin.
The establishment must not ascribe any ethnicity to the child. The information must come from the parent / guardian. Where the ethnicity had not yet been collected, ‘NOBT’ (information not yet obtained) was recorded. If a parent refused to provide ethnicity, ‘REFU’ (refused) was recorded. These categories combined are shown as ‘unclassified’ within the underlying data tables.
[1] For those local authorities who provide funded early education places flexibly over more than the standard 38 weeks, the funded hours during census week may not accurately reflect the full extent of the take-up of the funded early education place, e.g. a child funded for 10 hours during census week may in fact be taking up the fully funded place over more than 38 weeks.
[2] Please note those on the Universal Credit Live Service are not included. The number of parents on Live Service is relatively small and migration to Full Service is underway.
