Nursery Schools

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

I will come to staffing in nursery schools in a moment. The qualified teaching staff in nursery schools are what makes them so good.

There were 475 nursery schools in 2003, and there are now 414. While the number of nursery schools has steadily reduced, the number of children attending them has remained pretty static. There was a dip in the mid-2000s, but admissions are rising again as a result of increasing numbers of live births, and because educationalists and parents recognise the additionality that nursery schools deliver.

However, as local authorities have been hit by unprecedented cuts in funding since 2010, nursery schools are finding themselves at greater risk. There is no doubt that each nursery school place is relatively expensive when compared with a nursery class place, but the evidence is clear that that is because of the high proportion of graduate and teacher-trained staff. It is equally clear that that is what gives them their additionality and makes them so successful. They provide great outcomes for all children, including the most disadvantaged, and they outperform any other form of early-years education provision, even that in the most affluent areas. That is an important distinction.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I absolutely concur with her on the high standards achieved in maintained nursery schools, but is she concerned that one of the hits on the maintained sector was moving to the single funding formula prior to 2010? We need to look at funding for good quality nursery education.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree, and I will come to that. I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention.

What is happening to nursery schools now and why should that matter? As I said at the beginning, all Governments—this Government, the previous Government and no doubt the next Government—periodically state that they want good schools for every child, the best possible start in education, particularly for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, and good outcomes. Yet successive Governments have failed to recognise that that is exactly what they have in nursery schools.

Every Government say that they are not in the business of closing good schools, and yet that is precisely what is being allowed to happen through the neglect of this sector. Historically and currently, nursery schools have provided the best educational outcomes of any model in the early-years sector for all children, particularly those who would be described as vulnerable or disadvantaged. That is why what happens to nursery schools now matters and why it is important that we intervene.

Everyone is talking about school readiness as the silver bullet to improved early-years outcomes, but Ofsted’s evidence to the Education Committee’s recent inquiry into early years and child care showed us very clearly that when it comes to school readiness, nursery schools are the most successful delivery model. They are also the most successful model when it comes to integrating pupils with SEN, including the most severe SEN, into mainstream schools, and I will talk a little more about that later. Furthermore, they are the most successful model for narrowing the gap in the early years, for helping to get vulnerable children and families into a more secure place and for long-term outcomes for their small pupils.

I do not just rely on Education Committee evidence. Ofsted evidence clearly demonstrates that 90% of nursery schools are judged to be good or outstanding. That goes way, way beyond any other form of early-years provision in the system—here or in any other developed country, so far as I am aware.