Government approves grants for 300 school-based nurseries
The DfE has announced that it has approved grants for the first 300 new or extended nurseries in schools today.
This is part of their plan to boost early education and care places in areas of high demand and low supply.
But NDNA has been warning since the plan was first suggested in Labour’s manifesto that any new nurseries must NOT threaten or displace existing provision. Private, voluntary and independent (PVI) nurseries make up the largest part of the early years sector delivering at least 75% of all funded early education and care places.
The announcement said that schools were “more inclusive” and would help to settle children into school when they started their formal schooling.
The Department for Education press release also presented a misleading representation of SEND in early years. According to the 2024 Provider Survey, a higher percentage of PVI settings have children with SEND attending than school nurseries and the average number of children with SEND is five in both school and PVI nurseries.
Responding to the Government’s announcement, Executive Chair of National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) Purnima Tanuku CBE said: “With the large scale expansion of funded childcare from September, new school-based provision in partnership with PVI nurseries could help create needed places in areas where there is no capacity. However they must not threaten the existing high quality provision. We will be monitoring closely whether the criteria the government set out for this provision, which is to work closely with private and voluntary providers, and clearly evidence the local demand for places.
“From the start of this month, private and voluntary providers are facing huge increases in their operating costs, including statutory wage increases, new NIC costs and utility bills to name a few.
“At a time when the sector is struggling, and the local authority variations on new statutory guidance is causing enormous stress to providers, it is insensitive and extremely demoralising when the largest funder of early education and childcare – the Government – says ‘that school based early education tends to be more inclusive with a higher proportion of children with special needs than other settings’.
“Early years providers across the country work incredibly hard to provide places to meet the needs of all children and families. Nurseries are often unable to access the SEND funding they need to fully support children in their settings. If the Government is to address inclusivity it needs to address the SEND postcode lottery that exists for children, families and early years settings.
“With existing providers facing issues of underfunding, higher staffing costs and local recruitment challenges, these new nurseries must not damage or undermine established early years settings.
“Nurseries across the country have already started to work with schools and families of children making the important transition into school. It is wrong to suggest that school nurseries are better for children transitioning into Reception.
“PVI providers already deliver childcare in partnership with schools offering flexibility to parents and it is about time the Government should be more inclusive when it comes to supporting the PVI sector in parity with the maintained sector.”
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Delivering on our promise of a better early years system is my top priority, which is why we’ve more than doubled our investment in this first phase so thousands more children can benefit from a high-quality early education from this September.
“We said we’d act, and now we have. But this is just the beginning – we’ve set a hugely important milestone to get tens of thousands more children every year school-ready by age 5 as part of our Plan for Change.
“We’re raising the bar for early years, delivering on our manifesto commitments and building a system that gives every child the best start in life.
The announcement goes on to say:
School-based early education tends to be more inclusive – with a higher proportion of children with special educational needs than other settings.
And in areas where deprivation is higher, having early years provision embedded within a primary school helps children settle into learning in a familiar and trusted environment.
Looking at the transparency data that the DfE has published PVI nurseries will be delivering 1 in 10 of these school-based nurseries. The majority of the projects that have been funded are expanding existing nurseries rather than creating entirely new settings.
Each new school-based nursery will offer an average of 20 new places each, up to 6,000 new places in total across the country. By September they expect 4,000 of these places to be ready to take up in time for the final phase of the childcare expansion when eligible children aged nine months upwards can access a 30-hour per week place.
Each successful project has been given a grant of up to £150,000 to convert empty school spaces into nurseries.
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