It is recognition of the significant pressures that early years settings are facing with the Omicron variant leading to a rise in staff absences.
As we reported yesterday, the number of notifications to Ofsted of Covid more than doubled in the two weeks between 6 and 20 December.
The EYFS already includes the option for settings to relax their ratios in 'exceptional circumstances', however this is the first time that the Government has explicitly stated that it considers the current situation with Covid to be an ‘exceptional circumstance’ on which basis the ratio requirements in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework can temporarily be changed.
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