Maintained Nursery Schools

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). Like him, I have met the headteacher of the maintained nursery school in my constituency, and she also praised the Minister for his openness and willingness to listen. I hope that the Minister takes heed of those remarks. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for securing the debate, and for her expertise and hard work on this subject.

In my constituency of Heywood and Middleton, there is just one maintained nursery school left: Sunny Brow Nursery School in Middleton. I just want to say that my praise of the great work done by Sunny Brow Nursery should in no way be taken as a criticism of the other nursery providers in my constituency. I know how important childcare provision is and how valuable the service is to parents, employers and families. I would like to see all nursery provision being valued and an end brought to the minimum wage culture. We trust all nursery nurses with the care of our children. It is an important and responsible job, and should be remunerated as such.

Last week, I met Janet Cook, the headteacher of Sunny Brow Nursery, as well as the governors and parents, to discuss the dire funding situation facing the nursery. We also talked about the huge educational contribution and fantastic start in life that Sunny Brow has given to the children who attend it. The parents talked about how their previously shy and withdrawn children had blossomed in the atmosphere of Sunny Brow. One parent was guardian to a child who, sadly, suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome. She talked about how much the expert teaching at Sunny Brow had helped this child to prepare for primary school, in stark contrast to his two siblings with the same syndrome who had not had the benefit of attending a maintained nursery school and both struggled when they entered mainstream schooling, with many breaks and problems in their subsequent school careers that could and should have been addressed in the early years—the most important years in anyone’s education.

Sunny Brow employs graduate class teachers to provide the excellent care and education from which these children benefit and on which they thrive. Yet the future of the nursery is uncertain due to the lack of clarity over what will happen when the Government top-up fund comes to an end in April 2020. The headteacher told me that unless another source of funding becomes available, Sunny Brow, which has provided early years education in Middleton since the second world war, will no longer be able to operate and will be forced to close. We cannot allow this to happen. We know how important early years education is. This is supported by the Government’s own studies, which show that those from poorer backgrounds are likely to benefit more from education and care from the age of two.

The 30 hours’ childcare costs have helped to put extra pressure on maintained nursery schools’ budgets, as they do not get all the funding back for the 30 hours. This is an additional pressure for Sunny Brow, coupled with the uncertainty of its future post April 2020.

Sunny Brow serves a catchment area of pupils that includes many with specialist needs and disadvantaged backgrounds. With my constituency only 395th out of 533 parliamentary constituencies in the recently published “Social Mobility Index”, it is vital that we are able to maintain the high-quality early years provision provided at Sunny Brow Nursery. We should be celebrating the achievements of nurseries such as Sunny Brow, and their contribution to social mobility and closing the attainment gap, rather than letting them simply wither on the vine due to a lack of funding. Any Government who are serious about improving social mobility—I do believe that the Minister is serious about doing that—should be promoting the expansion of maintained nursery schools, especially into deprived areas like mine, not joining in a race to the bottom. I wish the Minister the best of luck in putting pressure on the Treasury to release funding for this vital service. He can rely on support from Labour Members in so doing.