They have received a ringing endorsement in the EPPE research and secured the backing of the children's minister, Margaret Hodge, who wants them to become children's centres. So why are local authorities continuing to close maintained nursery schools, discarding what one of their leading advocates describes as their 'distinctive ethos and specialist knowledge'?
There are now fewer than 480 in the country and closures continue unabated, despite guidance from the DfES to local authorities that 'they should presume that maintained nursery schools will always stay open unless there is a very good reason to close them'.
The main reasons cited for closure are a local authority's duty to remove surplus places, the trend away from demand for sessional nursery education, the expense of this kind of provision compared with others, and the presence of other sites more suited to the development of integrated centres.
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