The Government’s Early Years Education Recovery Programme (EYERP) pledged up to £180 million to ‘build a stronger, more expert’ workforce equipped to address the ‘impact of the pandemic on the youngest and most disadvantaged children’.
In the 2021 announcement, at the tail end of the pandemic, the DfE listed three priority areas where it hoped children would ‘catch up on lost learning’: communication and language (C&L) is the top priority, followed by personal, social and emotional development (PSED), and maths.
A further announcement in 2022 said the money would ‘help to address existing recruitment and retention challenges’.
Explaining the rationale for the child development priorities, the DfE says, ‘Research following the pandemic indicated that personal, social and emotional development and communication and language were the areas most impacted. Evidence also shows that improving outcomes in early language, literacy and maths are critical areas for later success, and especially for disadvantaged children.’
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