According to ‘Implications of Covid for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England’, the number of children attending ECEC in autumn 2021 dropped to 90 per cent of expected levels compared to pre-pandemic patterns.
The research has been carried out by the Centre for Evidence and Implementation, the University of East London, Fronter Economics, Coram Family and Childcare, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, it also reveals that the uptake of funded entitlement places among disadvantaged two-year-olds dropped 7 percentage points (from 69 per cent to 62 per cent). Of the disadvantaged two-year-olds who dropped out of ECEC between January 2020 and January 2021, ethnic minorities and children with special educational needs were the most likely to have done so.
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