The Early Years Alliance (EYA) has today (10 July) launched parallel surveys for both providers and parents/carers on the current and new early years entitlements.
It comes after the Department for Education last week confirmed the funding rates for the 15 and 30 hours from September.
The EYA’s provider survey covers the new rates and asks if settings are planning to deliver funded one-and-two-year-old places when the extended entitlement is introduced next year. It also asks for views on the Government’s policies to increase childminder numbers and changes to adult: child ratios.
The parallel survey for parents and carers asks for views on how easy it currently is to access early years places, and, for those respondents who have or are expecting children that will be eligible for the new offer for one-and-two-year-olds, their plans to take-up the funded entitlement.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said, ‘Ahead of one of the biggest expansions of the provision of early education and care, it has never been more important to hear directly from providers and parents on their experiences of both delivering and receiving the existing early entitlement offers, and their plans and expectations of how the new offers will work in practice – and critically, to understand whether or not these expectations are aligned.
‘All too often, early years policies are announced without the government sufficiently considering how they will impact the sector, and whether or not the families they are aimed at will actually benefit from them in practice.’
- Both surveys are open until Friday 21 July.
