DfE Early Years LA Key Updates
For all School Staff
Maximising take-up of the 15-hours entitlement for families receiving additional forms of support ('FRAS')
The department has made a commitment to driving take up of the entitlements by disadvantaged families. We want to support local authorities to engage these families and support them to use their entitlement.
We would encourage all local authorities to look at the recent good practice guide created by the LGA and Coram.
Renaming of the 15-hour entitlement for families receiving additional forms of support
Research and feedback indicate that the current, and previous, names for this entitlement created stigma and unnecessary confusion for families. We’re grateful for all the feedback you gave us last year on potential new names and have tested different options.
Moving forwards, this entitlement will be known as ‘Early Learning for 2-year-olds’. By using a clear, inclusive name, we aim to make information about early education entitlements more accessible and reassuring for families.
We would strongly encourage local authorities to adopt this new name as consistent use will align national and local messaging and help parents navigate information about the entitlements with more confidence. We have a range of campaign resources available to support local authorities to engage parents and ensure every child gets the best start to life.
Improving data and transparency
We’ve heard feedback that it would be helpful for DfE to be more transparent about our expectations for take up and how we assess take up rates internally.
From this term, we’re reintroducing the termly scorecards for FRAS and a new ‘minimum expectation’ for take up at local authority level, with a ‘stretching goal’ for local authorities who wish to go further.
Minimum expectations will be unique to each local authority and based on the average performance of local authorities with similar characteristics. It is not our intention for these to operate as formal targets and we do not intend to publish minimum expectations or the termly scorecards.
We would encourage local authorities to use the data and minimum expectations when thinking about including metrics for maximising take up in their local BSiL plans.
An FAQ document is attached.
Wraparound Spring MI
We are now in the Spring term MI 2026 provider reporting window. Thank you for your continued work with the MI data collection process, please can any queries continue to be submitted through the following MS forms link (instead of going through the helpdesk): Spring-Term MI Query Form – Fill in form
On Wednesday 28th January we shared an email to all Wraparound leads with MI template, LA guidance and FAQs if you did not receive a copy of the email, please contact childcareworks@mottmac.com. The remaining key dates for the Spring MI 2026 collection are below,
- *Monday 19th January to Friday 23rd January – Spring term 2026 reporting week.
- *Monday 26th January to Friday 30th January – Recommended provider reporting window.
*Dates to share with providers
Wraparound Spring MI Drop-in-Webinar
Today we hosted a webinar for local authorities on the Spring 2026 MI. The session included an overview of the MI process, timelines, and key tasks for LAs to complete and provided an opportunity to ask any questions you have about completing and submitting your MI return. The recording will be made available on SharePoint.
Lucy Nutt
Head of School and Early Years Improvement (my pronouns are she/her)