The UK Department of Education has announced £6.5 million fund to boost social mobility and support disadvantaged children who need the most help with early language and speech skills. This announcement builds on the £13.5 million investment announced in April to improve early language and literacy for disadvantaged children.
This includes £5 million for the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to trial projects that support parents to help their children learn new words, and an £8.5 million programme for local authorities to make improvements in early learning for local communities.
Education Secretary, Damian Hinds said, “This funding boost will go to organisations with a proven track record of breaking down learning barriers for children with additional needs. This is an important part of this government’s work to improve education for every child, to make sure that this is a country that truly works for everyone.”
The funding will be awarded to organisations that can demonstrate that projects will be self-sustaining, to ensure they will last to support future generations of children. Winning projects will be announced later this year and go live in October, running until 2020.
Voluntary and community groups will get a share of the multi-million pound fund to run projects that help disadvantaged families and children with additional needs, building on the free childcare offer already available to the most deprived two-year-old.
National voluntary and community groups will also be able to bid for funding to work with disadvantaged communities to encourage families to access the Government’s early education offers for children under five, as evidence shows high-quality early education can have a lasting impact on a child’s future.
The Department for Education is working to target resources where they can have the greatest success in helping the early development of children with special educational needs and from disadvantaged backgrounds. The competition opens to bidders from 1 July.