A consultation paper sent to headteachers in the London borough of Hounslow in the last week of January put forward proposals to cut the budget for reception units by 990,000 and fund reception at the same rate as year one. In practice this would require the withdrawal of nursery nurses from early years teams and affect 97 nursery nurse jobs. The consultation period ends on 15 February.
Linda Mason, a nursery nurse at Cardinal Road Infant and Nursery School, said, 'This would mean that there would be a class teacher with 30 four-year-olds. It's just going to be disastrous - it's going to affect the children's education later on.'
The nursery nurses have also had strong support from parents, many of whom have come into schools to write letters to councillors protesting at the cuts.
The nursery nurses were due to meet on Tuesday this week to discuss their campaign and to plan a protest march, to be held on 9 February. Representatives from the GMB and Unison were expected to attend. The march will start at 11.30am from the Civic Centre in Hounslow. There will be a public meeting at the Civic Centre to discuss the budget on 19 February and parents and staff are being urged to attend.
After the consultation period ends, the council will carry out a wider consultation about the level of council tax and proposed increases. It has calculated that it would need to raise council tax by 20 per cent to maintain all services at current levels.
A council spokesman claimed that the Government's funding allocation to Hounslow for 2002/2003 was one of the lowest in London, due to a fall in the borough's population, yet the council was required to fund increasing services for homeless people, children in care and the elderly. He added, 'Obviously not all of the proposed savings can be popular, especially when it relates to education.
'Hounslow currently funds some areas of service in schools, especially in the early years, at a higher level than that set out by Government policy. This means that schools, and the council, will face very difficult decisions about this area of education.'
However, he added that the nursery nurses' campaign would 'feed back into the consultation process' and could influence the final decisiocutting the reception
