The school-based nurseries will be located across the country, with the majority under this first phase of the scheme in the North and the Midlands.
Overall, the 300 school-based nurseries will provide an average of 20 places each and up to 6,000 new places in total, with up to 4,000 set to be available by the end of September.
It is not clear whether any of the 300 school-based nurseries will be using PVI providers to deliver the provision.
A total of £37 million has been made available by the DfE to fund the programme, which was first announced in the Labour party manifesto.
Bloemfontein Primary School in County Durham is one of the 300 school-based nurseries opening from September. It be using the funding from the DfE to open a new baby room on site. The school currently provides care for toddlers and pre-schoolers.
Headteacher Alex Armstrong said, ‘We wanted to address the shortage of nursery places in our local area and to provide the community with high-quality early education for our youngest learners. This funding will enable us to transform unused school space into an engaging and vibrant environment, offering year-round childcare for children from birth to five.’
Education secretary Bridget Philipson commented, ‘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.’
'Many schools do not have staff with the necessary skills and experience to deliver high-quality education and care to under-threes'.
The Early Years Alliance argued that opening school-based nurseries won’t provide enough places alone to meet increasing demand.
Chief executive Neil Leitch said, ‘With more than three-quarters of entitlement places currently delivered by private and voluntary nurseries, pre-schools and childminders, it's clear that this vital part of the early years sector should be central to any plans to drive up capacity - especially given we're just months away from the final phase of the entitlement expansion. Many schools simply do not have the resources, or staff with the necessary skills and experience, to deliver high-quality education and care to under-threes.
‘Why, then, is the Government continuing to drag its feet on ensuring that PVI providers are both adequately funded and supported to tackle the longstanding staffing crisis?’
Early Education, which said it hoped nursery schools will be included under future phases of the programme, similarly argued that PVI settings and childminders are best placed to support younger children and offer full daycare to support parents to work.
Chief executive Beatrice Merrick explained, ‘Schools have less expertise in these younger age-groups and can face structural challenges in delivering extended hours. Building strong and mutually supportive partnerships between schools and PVIs should therefore be a key aspect of future phases which are intended to support working parents’, she explained.
The National Day Nurseries Association reiterated its warning that the new school nurseries ‘must not damage or undermine established early years settings.’
Its executive chair Purnima Tanuku added, ‘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.’
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