New research shows a reality gap between the government’s policy intentions and progress to date on opening new school-based nursery scheme.
Although there are advantages to providing nurseries within schools, there’s limited room for growth and many aren’t targeted where they’re most needed, the research finds.
The Sutton Trust and the Social Market Foundation, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, examines the scale of the government’s challenge in delivering its flagship policy to create 3,000 new or expanded nurseries on school sites in England, using spare space.
The report reveals limited appetite among schools to set up on-site nurseries if they don’t already have one. 70% said it’s unlikely that they will do so, and just 20% already have a plan in place or are likely to open one.
Even if all these schools followed through, the programme is likely to fall significantly short of its target.
This matters, because school-based nurseries have the potential to be particularly impactful for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with SEND, with existing school-based nurseries more likely than other providers to serve these groups.
Yet access to childcare and early education remains highly unequal. Large parts of England face ‘childcare deserts’, particularly in more disadvantaged areas, suggesting that expanding provision could help address access gaps if it is well-targeted.
The government’s roll-out of the school-based nurseries initiative has faced criticism for not adequately targeting disadvantaged areas and populations in its first two phases, as well as often funding expansions of existing provision rather than entirely new nurseries. This is despite the second phase having a greater focus on serving disadvantaged children.
The number of children eligible for free school meals supported in nurseries has barely increased between phase one and phase two, changing from 25% to 26%, lower than the 28% for pre-existing school-based nurseries. Entirely new nurseries funded through the programme have even lower levels of pupils eligible for free school meals, at 23%. These new nurseries were around a third less likely to be located in the most disadvantaged schools compared to pre-existing school nurseries (16% for new nurseries, 24% for existing sites).
A number of practical and financial barriers to expansion were identified in a survey with school leaders. The most common issues for those who currently don’t have an early years setting were no suitable indoor space (51%), high start-up costs (50%) and financial viability (46%).
Key financial barriers were the cost of staff-to-child ratios (73%), ongoing staff costs (67%), and the capital costs of converting school space (65%).
There are also questions over whether schools are best placed to provide support for younger children. Where schools do have on-site early years provision, few support the youngest children. 95% serve three- and four- year olds, with only 42% covering two- to three- year olds. Just 6% offer places for children aged between one and two.
The report’s authors are calling for the government to prioritise disadvantaged areas in the roll-out of school-based nurseries, and examine ways to improve relationships between schools and local nursery providers. Despite 89% of school leaders recognising the importance of relationships with nearby early years settings, these relationships remain rare.
The government still needs to clarify the programme’s purpose – whether the focus is for a quick expansion of childcare places, or on improving access to high-quality early education. More broadly, the government should widen early years access to children in low-income households so they can fully benefit from the scheme, increasing eligibility requirements for the 15-hour disadvantage entitlement for two year olds to reflect inflation. This would raise the proportion of eligible children from around 25% back to its previous level of 40%.
And schools and early years providers need to ensure that disadvantaged households are served by their early years provision. The ‘schoolification’ of early years must also be avoided, by ensuring teaching and the environment it’s delivered in are designed to be age appropriate.
Commenting, Carl Cullinane, Director of Research and Policy at the Sutton Trust and Principal Investigator on the project, said: "The government’s school-based nursery programme is a promising initiative, but it’s now facing a reality check on its implementation. This research highlights the many benefits of school-based nurseries, but there’s still a mountain to climb in creating new places, and targeting them in the right areas.
"To harness the benefits of this policy, the government needs to provide more support to schools, both financial and in terms of guidance on best practice. If we’re serious about widening access to quality early education and childcare, and improving school readiness, this initiative needs to be far better targeted where it can make the most difference. Meanwhile, we need to re-examine access to early education for the lowest income families."
