The number of vulnerable children attending early years settings has more than halved since the start of the school holidays, according to Department for Education (DfE) data released today.

Early years settings were attended by 12,000 vulnerable children on 30 July, down from 25,000 on 16 July (before the end of term in most areas), the data shows.

This is a bigger proportional drop than the overall fall in children attending early years settings over the same period.

Overall, 285,000 early years children were in attendance on 30 July, down from 417,000 on 16 July.

The data shows that 46 per cent of early years settings were open “in some capacity” on 30 July, down from 62 per cent on 16 July.

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Vulnerable children were highlighted by the DfE during lockdown as a group that should be attending school and nursery as a priority.

In this set of data, they include 0 to 4-year-olds classified as “children in need” or who have an education health and care plan (EHCP).

The DfE says it will continue to monitor attendance in early years settings during the summer period, but says: “Ordinarily, fewer early years settings are open and fewer children are in attendance during school summer holidays.”

The data covers group-based providers (Ofsted-registered nurseries and pre-schools), school-based providers (any pre-school provision run by school governing bodies, nursery classes in schools and maintained nursery school provision) and Ofsted-registered.