30 hours funding could cause school nurseries to close
There are huge concerns that the increase in free funding from fifteen hours to thirty hours in 2017 could lead to the closure of many school nurseries and early years settings up and down the UK.
There are an initial two years extra support available out of tax payers money but there is nothing in place to help support early years settings after these two years. Experts suggest that this could lead to some nurseries receiving 50% of the funding they usually receive as the funding amount will remain the same but will have to 50% further.
There are fears that the 400 maintained nursery schools in the UK will be hit the hardest by the funding changes, many of these located in the most deprived areas around the UK. Many of the settings also hold important outstanding grades from Ofsted meaning they are improving children’s lives and giving them outstanding opportunities to improve their future outcomes. It would be a real shame and could prove incredibly damaging if these settings had to close due to funding gaps.
The government has released data which does highlight that many of these concerns are very valid and that the additional funding that can be received for two years may not be enough. The consequences of losing so many early years settings could lead to children struggling to find an early years setting to gain important early years education.
Experts are calling to the government to ask them to make further considerations into the funding that will be available to prevent any closures to early years settings due to not receiving enough money to stay open.
The government claim that the extra two years support early years settings will be receiving is the biggest financial support that has been put into the early years for some time. The have also declared how they will be consulting with nursery schools where much of the funding concerns seem to mainly stem from.
The funding is inadequate and all nurseries have had enough. All children at all settings should recieve the same funding and all preschool aged children should recieve the same funding guarantees school aged children received. We will be offering the same hours of education that schools deliver but on a fraction of the funding. Under the Labour government there was real investment made in children under 5. This http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/wp04.pdf report highlights this and all the benefits. Our new minister for Early years is a full of rubbish as all her predecessors. When will the current government recognise the value of proper investment in the under 5’s and stop eroding all the positive invement made during 1998 and 2010. There is countless evidence to support how early intervention, investment and quality education and support in this age group has long term benefits on society. We need to all pull together and try to think we are better than each other. All types of early years provision is essential include no chikdren centres, maintained nurseries, private nurseries, independent school nurseries, charities and childminders. This government needs to increase the hourly rate, ring fence all funding for children centres and early years education and add new money for training and de loping the essential workforce.
I think you are right Sian, there are countless benefits of early intervention and a good preschool education. This should be mirrored in the funding that the sector receives.
But nursery schools will still be getting the same as PVI settings. The funding is going to be low for everyone. It isn’t fair some settings should have more money is it?
We are a private nursery in partnership with the local authority and have been since the government funding started. Things have become harder and harder for us to survive on the amounts of funding we are awarded from the council. The new hours which are offered for three and four year olds by local authority nurseries have also had a detremental effect on us. They offer to group their hours together and offer full days. We employ twenty eight staff and fear if the government do offer thirty hours funded pkaces per week, and do not give the partner providers more funding monies there will be a lot of fully qualified nursery nurses out of work. Why do the councils keep spending more and more money on opening new council nurseries instead of refering families to their partner providers? We have spoken to many local nurseries who are in partnership with the council and they are in the same pisition. We can honestly say that at our nursery the staff and management give 110% to all the families and it would be sad, after twenty years operating, to fail now!
It is not just the 30 hours funding that will close the nursery schools the new Early Years Formula Funding that could be introduced as early as April the 1st will half the budgets of nursery schools and make them not sustainable.