Birth to 5 Matters Second Edition: What Happens When the Sector Speaks Together
On 15 July 2026, the Early Years Coalition launched the second edition of Birth to 5 Matters. I have spent the days since turning it over, and one thing keeps coming back to me.
This document exists because thousands of people who work with young children decided to say the same thing at the same time.
That matters more than any single page of it.
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The Problem With Advocating Alone
Most of us in early years spend our working lives making the case for young children from our own small corner.
The childminder explains to a parent why the mud and the mess are worth it. The nursery manager defends unhurried transitions to a visiting professional. The reception teacher argues for another term of play before the phonics screening pressure lands. The trainer says the same thing in room after room and wonders whether any of it sticks.
We are all saying versions of the same thing. Most of the time, we are saying it alone.
It can feel like talking into the void. You make the argument, the conversation moves on, and next week you make it again. Over time that wears people down. Some of the best educators I know have stopped raising the things they care about most, simply because saying it alone got exhausting.
Then something like this lands.
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What 13,000 Responses Built
The second edition started with an online survey, by the sector, for the sector. It drew more than 13,000 responses.
Those responses shaped everything that followed. They led to 23 specialist working groups made up of researchers, trainers and practitioners who volunteered their time to bring the guidance up to date and in line with new developments. A draft then went back out to the sector, asking a plain question: what do you think of this? The feedback came in, and the guidance was redrafted again.
Look at that process for a moment. Childminders, nursery practitioners, teachers, academics and trainers, all giving hours to update guidance that nobody is legally obliged to follow.
The result is an expression of what this sector actually values. It stands on academic research and on current practice, from settings of every size and shape. It is not a political document. It is a collective one.
That is what changes when voices come together. The argument you have been making alone in your setting now sits inside a document that 13,000 people helped shape. You are no longer the only person in the room saying it.
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Five Ways to Turn the Second Edition Into Your Sector Voice
A document only carries weight if people use it. Here are five practical ways to put it to work in your setting over the coming months.
01 Adopt the word "educator"
Everyone working in the sector is now referred to as an educator. That single change carries real weight. It gives a childminder, a room leader and a reception teacher the same professional descriptor, and it names what the job actually involves.
Try it in your own setting. Use it in your job adverts, your parent newsletters, your policies and your team meetings. Language shapes how people see the work, including how we see it ourselves.
02 Protect time in the calendar, section by section
This is my one real wish for the sector. Settings get busy. A document like this gets downloaded in July and opened again in a panic before an inspection.
Leaders, you are the ones who can prevent that. Take one section per staff meeting across the autumn and spring terms. Twenty minutes of shared reading and discussion beats a full day that never happens. Put the dates in the diary now, while the launch still feels fresh.
03 Start with the sections that are new to you
The second edition adds new sections on sustainability, digital pedagogy, reception and beyond, expressive arts and design, equality, equity, diversity and inclusion, and birth to two. Those are the areas where the sector recognised gaps in the first edition.
Pick the one that stretches your team most. If your setting has strong practice with 3 and 4 year olds but less confidence with babies, start at birth to two. If your team keeps circling back to screens and technology questions, start with digital pedagogy. If you have been meaning to look harder at whose culture and language your provision reflects, the equality, equity, diversity and inclusion section gives you a shared place to begin.
04 Use the case studies as CPD
The website now holds banks of additional material alongside the core guidance, with easier navigation than before. The case studies are the part I am most looking forward to using with the educators I work with.
They work well as a reflection prompt rather than a model to copy. Read one as a team, then ask what would be different in your setting, and why. That question tends to surface far more than a training slide ever does.
05 Notice the shift from age to range
There is more emphasis on range and less on age in this edition. Development refuses to run to a timetable, and the guidance now reflects that more honestly.
Use it when you talk to parents who are anxious about milestones, and when you write about children in your own documentation. It gives you shared language for something many of us have been explaining one conversation at a time for years.
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No Document Is Perfect
This one is not either, and how you interpret it will depend on your setting, your children, your community and your own professional history. A childminder working with four children in a home and a nursery with 90 places will open the same page and arrive somewhere different. That is how it works.
What the second edition gives you is a starting point that thousands of people helped shape. The resources are extensive. They serve as a jumping off point for your team, not a script.
Congratulations to everyone who put this together. The scale of what the sector achieved here is worth pausing on.
I cannot wait to start using it as a reflection tool with the educators I work with.
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FAQ Section
What is Birth to 5 Matters?
Birth to 5 Matters is non-statutory guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage in England, produced by the Early Years Coalition. It offers guidance developed by the sector to support practice, alongside the statutory EYFS framework.
When was the second edition launched?
The Early Years Coalition launched the second edition on 15 July 2026.
What is new in the second edition?
New sections cover sustainability, digital pedagogy, reception and beyond, expressive arts and design, equality, equity, diversity and inclusion, and birth to two. Everyone working in the sector is now described as an educator, there is more emphasis on developmental range than fixed ages, and the website has been redesigned with an extended bank of free resources.
Is Birth to 5 Matters free?
The guidance is available to download free as a PDF from the Birth to 5 Matters website, with a printed book available to buy from Early Education and other sector organisations.
How can settings use it for CPD?
Taking one section per staff meeting works well, using the case studies as reflection prompts rather than models to copy, and beginning with the sections that stretch your team most.