Languages: Pre-school Education

Department for Education written question – answered at on 10 December 2020.

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Photo of Jonathan Lord Jonathan Lord Conservative, Woking

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help improve the development of language skills in early education.

Photo of Vicky Ford Vicky Ford The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education

Since 2018, we have committed more than £60 million to programmes to improve early language and literacy. Additionally, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are spending up to £9 million of the National Tutoring Programme fund during the 2020/21 academic year on the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI), a robustly evidenced programme proven to improve oral language skills.

The recent Spending Review has confirmed that the department will fund further expansion of an evidence-based reception year early language programme (such as NELI) during the 2021/22 academic year.

Furthermore, over 3,000 early adopter schools are implementing the reforms to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) from September 2020, ahead of statutory roll out in September 2021. One of the main aims of the revised framework is to improve early years outcomes for all children, particularly disadvantaged children in the critical areas that build the foundation for later success, such as language development.

As part of the reforms, we have revised the educational programmes to strengthen teaching practice in communication and language, providing a deeper focus on building vocabulary to address the word gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.

Further information on the early adopter EYFS framework can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896810/EYFS_Early_Adopter_Framework.pdf.

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