Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support the early learning and development of children at home.

The department is investing over £300 million to enable 75 local authorities to create family hubs, and to improve vital services to give every baby the best start in life, including support for parenting, perinatal mental health and parent infant relationships, and infant feeding. An additional £29 million has been made available to these local authorities to improve early language development, by supporting parents to help their children learn at home through the provision of evidence-based support with home learning.

In January 2024, the department launched a national campaign ‘Little Moments Together.’ It offers free resources and advice for parents to enhance children’s language and communication development on the NHS Better Health Start for Life website at: https://www.nhs.uk/start-for-life/early-learning-development/. The department’s focus is on educating parents about brain development in the first five years of life, and the crucial role they play. The campaign encourages parents to chat, play, and read more with their children, suggesting ways to fit opportunities into their busy schedules in and around the home. The ‘Little Moments Together’ campaign can be viewed online at: https://campaignresources.dhsc.gov.uk/campaigns/better-health-start-for-life/better-health-start-for-life-home-learning-environment-2024/.

In addition, the department is working with early years national voluntary and community sector partners, including the National Literacy Trust, to assist family hubs to deliver home learning support to disadvantaged and low-income families. The department has provided £4.5 million in grant funding for partners to develop resources using the ‘Little Moments Together’ campaign messaging, offer peer-led activities directly to parents, and to engage with disadvantaged groups locally on home learning through the developing family hub networks.