The National Standard

The National Standard sets out what children and families should expect from their early learning experience regardless of where they access their child’s funded hours.

All funded ELC providers will be required to meet the Standard before they can access funding to deliver the free hours, whether they are in the public, private or third sectors or childminders.

For an overview of the content of the National Standard you may find it helpful to access this summary document of the 10 quality criteria (and an appendix of the March 21 updates) or watch this bitesize session. Or for a copy of the slides and notes to access the links referred to in the bitesize session click here if you are setting or here if you are a childminder.

Settings can read more about High Quality ELC in Highland here and can use the National Standard Audit tool to monitor their progress towards meeting the Standard.