DfE are inviting your setting to take part in a survey that the Department for Education (DfE) is running to understand the impact of COVID on your early years setting, focusing on workforce and child absences. This would involve filling in a very short weekly survey for the first part of 2022. This is the fourth week of the survey. We really value your continued engagement with the survey.
Since March 2020, the childcare and early years sector has faced unprecedented circumstances brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. DfE knows that there is concern about workforce absence as part of the latest wave of the pandemic, but has limited regular, up-to-date data about this. This survey will be crucial to obtaining an accurate picture of the issues that the childcare and early years sector are facing on a regular basis.
We are inviting you to take part and obtained your contact details either from the Ofsted register or from the Schools Census. This data collection will be conducted entirely by the DfE.
We understand that, particularly in the current climate, your time is precious, but it is really important that we can gather evidence on this issue and hope that you will be able to take part. This data will be essential to inform DfE’s response to the latest wave of the pandemic and in assessing policy options and development.
DfE also understands that there is concern in the early years sector about longer term recruitment and retention issues. We have commissioned qualitative interviews on the theme of early years workforce and a survey on early years workforce issues and financial health compared to before the pandemic. We expect these pieces of research to be published in Spring 2022, and their findings will inform future policy development in this area.
Ofsted collects data on COVID notifications so this survey does not collect this information. Instead, this focuses on workforce absence due to COVID and child attendance over this latest wave of the pandemic.
How do I take part?
To complete the survey click here.
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