Early years minister Catherine Ashton told the Forum for Maintained Nursery Schools conference in London last week that nursery schools were at the heart of Labour's policies for young children. She said, 'One might reflect that the McMillan sisters' vision of early education and support for parents living in poverty in Deptford is still the model for the comprehensive and universal services we want to see established.'
Baroness Ashton said many countries on the Continent had recognised the value of the nursery school approach early on and had 'configured services on a national scale accordingly'. The Government now wished to embrace this approach, she said, as nursery schools represented an 'invaluable resource and a powerful network'.
Baroness Ashton said, 'My vision for the sector is one that places maintained nursery schools increasingly at the heart of developments to bring services together.' She envisaged that in future they would open year-round, providing for children from babies to school age and actively supporting their parents.
Her respectful tone was a stark contrast to that of the former employment and equal opportunities minister Margaret Hodge, who told a London conference on the future of maintained nursery schools in January 2001 that they would have to expand their services in order to earn their keep.
Nursery schools have been vulnerable to cuts and closure by local education authorities seeking to replace them with nursery units attached to primary schools. But evidence from the Department for Education and Skills-funded EPPE (Effective Provision of Pre-school Education) project showed they provided some of the best quality care and education in England.
Baroness Ashton said the DfES had recently introduced a grant programme to help nursery schools prepare to enter the Neighbourhood Nursery scheme. So far, 55 have responded to the invitation to bid for grants, most of which have been successful. There were also 45 nursery schools directly involved in the Early Excellence programme. The Education Bill now going through Parliament would provide nursery schools with 'big opportunities' by requiring them to have governing bodies, in line with other maintained schools.
Baroness Ashton picked out a number of themes she wished to endorse from the cross-departmental review of childcare and early years education set up last October. These included clarity on the contribution that schools could make as community resources and the development of a 'positive vision for childcare for 2010', with initiatives backed up by simplified, joined-up funding.
She said, 'Perhaps we had too many smaller initiatives over the last few years and not enough of a well-signposted bigger picture of where we wanted to get to and when. I know many of you have been pioneering many of these steps for some time. Well done.'
