Landmark strategy to improve early years and family services
Source: Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, 7 July 2025
Hundreds of thousands of families in every corner of England will soon feel the benefits of a rebuilt early childhood support service that will give every child the chance to succeed, and every parent somewhere to turn for advice and support.
The Best Start in Life strategy will see a fundamental step change in how the government drives up quality in early education, ensures places are available in every community, and restores crumbling family services for the next generation – as the government places £1.5 billion of cash behind the reforms.
Having a trained early years teacher can lead to better long-term life chances for children, with research showing settings with graduate staff score more highly on all quality measures.
However, only 1 in 10 nurseries have an early years teacher now, meaning action to restore fairness is needed after years of neglect.
That’s why through a new incentive scheme, the government will fund tax-free payment of £4,500 to attract the very best talent and keep 3,000 more early years teachers in nurseries serving the 20 most disadvantaged communities in the country.
The approach taken is just one first step toward raising standards in the most disadvantaged areas and ensuring every community has a fair chance to succeed – a crucial mission to drive real national renewal.
The strategy will set out measures the government is considering to raise the quality and availability of places, strengthening partnerships between nurseries and schools to get children ready to enter reception.
From next April Ofsted will inspect all new early years providers within 18 months of opening and move towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, compared to the current 6 year cycle.
That’s why we are restoring crucial family services by delivering up to 1,000 Best Start Family Hubs across every local authority in England and scaling up the very best of early years education and care to get tens of thousands more children starting school ready to learn.