The extension of the funding is to ensure the survival of nursery schools until the DfE comes up with a long-term solution – expected to be announced in the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
Labour's shadow minister for children and early years welcomed the £23 million in funding however urged ministers to come up with a long-term solution.
Funding to boost children's language
The children’s minister Vicky Ford has also announced today a multi-million pound package of funding to boost Reception children’s early language skills.
Schools are being urged to sign up to an early years‘catch-up’ programme, which is focused on raising outcomes in speaking and listening skills among young children whose education has been disrupted by Covid-19.
Up to £9 million is available under the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme to provide schools with training and resources, helping them to deliver one-to-one and small -group support for five-year-olds whose spoken language skills may have suffered as a result of the pandemic.
The investment is part of the National Tutoring Programme, announced by the Government in June.
All schools with a Reception class will be invited to apply for the funding, with priority given to those with a high proportion of disadvantaged pupils.
Comments
Children’s minister Vicky Ford said, ‘Nurseries and other early years settings have played a huge part in keeping our youngest children safe and supported throughout the pandemic, but too many children have missed out on education at a crucial point in their development.
‘Ahead of every pupil returning to the classroom full-time in September, we’re increasing the support available to get them back on track and ready to learn.
‘We cannot afford for our youngest children to lose out, which is why this package of support is focused on improving early language skills for the Reception children who need it most, and especially those whose long-term outcomes who have been affected by time out of education.’
Tulip Siddiq, Labour’s shadow minister for children and early years, said, ‘I’m glad that maintained nursery schools will get this support, but they need long-term funding rather than ministers deciding their futures on a whim every year. We also need targeted financial support from Government to save all nurseries and childminders.’
The Early Years Alliance criticised the Government for providing additional support only to nursery schools and not private and voluntary providers.
Chief executive Neil Leitch said, ‘It is hugely frustrating - and frankly, insulting - to see yet another announcement of additional support for maintained nursery schools while the Government continues to turn a blind eye to the huge challenges facing private and voluntary providers across the country.
‘When the early years national funding formula was introduced, the Government introduced universal base rates of funding on the basis that “the costs of providing childcare are broadly comparable for a private nursery, a charitable pre-school or a school nursery class”. How, then, can it now argue that maintained settings need more financial support than the rest of the sector?
‘At a time when many of the tens of thousands of PVI providers currently operating are struggling to stay afloat in the face of continued underfunding and the impact of Covid-19, such unbalanced treatment of the sector is simply unacceptable. The Government must commit to ensuring that all early years providers, whether maintained or PVI, receive the funding that they need to remain viable in the long term.’
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), said, 'Today’s announcement brings more warm words for the nursery and early years sector but no real support. While any additional support for early years is welcome, by focussing on Reception classes and maintained nursery schools the Government is ignoring over a million children and those who work with them.
'The childcare sector has been a fourth emergency service throughout the pandemic, allowing critical worker families to get on with their jobs. Over the summer a huge amount of work and investment has gone into safely re-opening settings for children coming back to nursery as well.
'The earliest years of a child’s life are crucial to their development and starting their educational journey on the right footing. But waiting until Reception can be too late. Children have been returning to nurseries up and down the country since June, some of them having spent months away. The whole early years sector needs support now to help work with those children as well as deal with the spiralling costs of providing Covid-safe childcare.
'The whole of the early years sector needs transitional financial support and fair rates for the childcare they provide, and they need them now.'
