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<p>Every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfil their
potential. A child’s experience in the early years has a major impact on their future
outcomes and social mobility. On 20 October, the department published the early years
foundation stage profile (EYFSP) results for the 2015 to 2016 academic year, at national
and local authority level. At a national level, 69.3% of children achieved a good
level of development, which is an increase of 3 percentage points on 2015 (compared
to 66.7% in the North West, which also represents an increase of 3 percentage points
on the North West’s 2015 data). The latest EYFSP results are available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2015-to-2016"
target="_blank">www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2015-to-2016</a></p><p>
</p><p>High quality early education is key to future outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged
children. That is why we are working hard to ensure parents and children - wherever
they live in England - have access to high quality early years education places through
the funded 15 hour entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds and the universal 15
hours entitlement for all three- and four-year-olds. At present, 84% of all two-year-olds
(compared with 84% in the North West) and 86% of all three- and four-years-olds (compared
to 88% in the North West) take up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting.</p><p>From
September 2017, working parents who meet the eligibility criteria will also have access
to an additional 15 hours of funded early education. Our proposed early years funding
formula includes an additional needs factor - to better target funding towards local
authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs -
and an area cost adjustment to reflect local operating costs. This will help to ensure
that all children can access quality early education in their area.</p><p>The government
is taking further steps to understand the regional attainment gap. In May 2016, the
department commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the regional gap in early
years at age 5, including recommendations to undertake a further study through longitudinal
analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MSC) to assess variation in attainment and
evaluate the potential drivers of a regional gap.</p>
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