Nursery Schools

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Sir Roger, to serve under your chairmanship—something that I seem to have done quite a bit recently; we are entertaining one another on the same Bill Committee. I welcome the Minister to his place. We genuinely look forward to working with his team, and I hope his appointment will usher in a new era of listening, which we have not had a lot of from the Department for Education team in the past four years. He will be relieved to know that I do not intend this debate to be made up of political ping-pong; the neglect of nursery schools in this country spans this Government and the previous Government. I hope, however, that we will at least get a Department that listens to what is happening and ceases the neglect.

The maintained education nursery sector does not have a long history in this country. Prior to the 1970s, local authorities were prevented from opening education nursery schools and offering early-years education. I do not know why that is, so do not ask me, but that was what happened. In the early 1970s, the rules were changed and local authorities were encouraged to provide nursery education for pupils aged three and above. Prior to that, most centres known as nursery schools were social services-run provisions or health-run provisions, largely admitting children with significant special educational needs or children on the at-risk register. From the early 1970s onwards, local authorities started to open education nursery schools, often concentrating on areas of deprivation first. The first nursery schools that opened in the 1970s were often large, 52-place provisions, offering early education to 26 children in the morning and 26 children in the afternoon.

Once the benefits of early universal provision became clearer from the 1980s onwards, local authorities started to follow a policy of opening nursery classes attached to infant or primary schools, with the long-term intention of creating universal coverage, but that meant that local authorities often had an uneven pattern of provision by the 1990s. Nursery classes were attached to most, but not all primary schools, and large nursery schools often sited in the wrong geographic areas. From the early 1990s onwards, there was a programme of gradually reducing standard numbers in nursery schools, amalgamating nursery schools and nursery classes and closing some nursery schools. There were moves to more appropriate buildings or more appropriate geographic settings for others.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I know she has tremendous experience in child services. She talked about closures, and we have learned on Teesside that the North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is closing two nurseries, at North Tees hospital and Hartlepool hospital. Will she join me in expressing shock at such a decision, which will lead to excellent provision going away and lots of jobs being lost?

[Pat Glass]

I am disappointed to hear that, because I remember visiting those nurseries when I was an assistant director of education in Sunderland in the mid-1990s. They were seen as a beacon of good integrated practice, bringing together education, health and social services. They were offering what we were hoping would be the future.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate on an important subject. On a slightly more positive note, will she congratulate the six Cambridgeshire nursery schools—three of which, Brunswick, The Fields and Colleges, are in my constituency, and one of which, Homerton, is a few metres outside it—on being part of the first nursery teaching school in the country? That shows that there can be excellence, which we can, I hope, spread to everywhere else.

[Pat Glass]

Yes, I congratulate them. That is exactly the model that the Education Committee was suggesting for nursery schools in the future. I am pleased to hear that; perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I can have a chat after the debate.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. Chair, I apologise for being slightly late. On a point of clarification, given her experience can the hon. Lady say whether we have the necessary qualified staffing for nursery provision? Is that an issue? Some 130,000 places were issued this year, but there are still tens of thousands of spaces that cannot be filled. Is there a staffing problem?

[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.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is explaining that stand-alone nurseries are the best form, and all the evidence points to that. Is the key factor in that the quality of the staff? By improving quality and standards and providing qualified teacher status for all lead staff in all nursery settings, can we have the same standards in other nursery settings or does she think we should be moving towards having a greater number of stand-alone nurseries?

[Pat Glass]

I will discuss leadership in nursery schools shortly, but the Education Committee model suggests that nursery schools should stand at the centre of the hub-and-spokes model, providing good practice out to nursery classes across their region.

I expect the Minister to tell me in his response that primary schools are judged as a whole, that there is no separate Ofsted inspection of nursery classes in a primary school and that nursery classes cannot therefore be judged against nursery schools, but I remind him of what I just said: 90% of nursery schools are judged to be good or outstanding, with the same results in disadvantaged and affluent areas. That goes beyond what we can say about the primary sector across the country.

Of nurseries inspected between 1 January and 31 March 2014, 55% were judged outstanding in comparison with 8% of primaries and 14% of secondaries. The disparity is huge. I also remind the Minister that I do not have to rely solely on statistics to support my case; I can draw on 25 years of direct experience in education, and I know what I have seen over and over again in nursery schools.

Of nursery schools judged by Ofsted up to 30 June 2013, 58% were rated outstanding in leadership and management, which compares with 20% in primary, 29% in secondary and 39% in SEN. Nursery school provision is extremely well managed and is recognised as such by Ofsted. I ask the Minister to consider that 62% of nursery schools are in 30% of the most disadvantaged areas in England, so we are getting outstanding results and leadership despite the fact that the schools largely operate in such areas. There are a higher proportion of nursery schools in the north-east—it appears that there may be slightly fewer in future—than we would see nationally, and those nursery schools are concentrated in the most disadvantaged areas of the most disadvantaged region. Yet we are seeing incredibly good results.

Nursery schools admit children from many different backgrounds and give priority to children in social and medical needs categories. That is confirmed by the Department for Education’s survey statistics: at least 11% of children at 47% of nursery schools have special educational needs. No other category of school, except special schools, comes anywhere close to that level of admission and yet no other category of early-years provision comes close to the outcomes that nursery schools achieve with SEN pupils. Ofsted has highlighted that nursery schools have particular expertise in the teaching of young bilingual children. Children from BME backgrounds make up 33% of nursery school pupils and yet have outcomes that outperform BME children of a similar age attending nursery classes, even in the most affluent areas. The statistics really highlight the quality of the provision that nursery schools provide.

A significantly higher proportion of maintained nursery schools offer wrap-around day care provision than any other form of maintained early-years provision—just the kind of provision that the Government say that they want to support working parents and parents training for or looking for work. Nursery schools often provide it much cheaper than can be achieved in the non-maintained sector, which is one of the reasons why parents like them so much. Why on earth have successive Governments not recognised the value of nursery schools and stopped the threats to their future? It is beyond me. The Government say that they want good schools and these are the best in their sector by far.

In her last appearance before the Education Committee on 18 June, the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), appeared to give just two reasons why she was not wholly supportive of nursery schools. She told me that

“49 local authorities do not have any maintained nursery schools at all”

but I reminded her that that meant that 153 or 154 local authorities have at least one and that many have more. It seemed sensible to the Select Committee that local authorities and the Government should use these highly-specialised beacons of excellence to build good practice across authorities. The Minister also told me that nursery schools are expensive, and they are—this is where things do become slightly political, because it is about priorities—because they employ a head teacher, a higher proportion of graduate staff and qualified teachers. That, too, is why they are so successful.

Yes, these tried and tested, highly successful schools may be slightly more expensive than nursery classes, but they are nowhere near as expensive as the experimental, untried and untested free schools programme that the Government are pushing so hard and that has a budget overspend, at the last count, of well over a billion pounds. It is not only me who recognises the value of nursery schools and is concerned about Government policy. The British Association for Early Childhood Education described them as “beacons of high quality” and as playing

“a leading role in developing the early years work force”.

The Ofsted chief inspector’s first annual report in 2014 on early years noted:

“The only early education provision that is at least as strong, or even stronger in deprived areas compared with wealthier areas is nursery schools”.

If we are concerned about narrowing the gap and, like the Education Committee, about outcomes for white working-class children, nursery schools in deprived areas seem to be the most successful model.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the best early visits that a new Education Minister could conduct would be to the Pen Green centre, which the Committee has visited, to see the masters and PhD courses? It not only provides an excellent local service to children, many of whom are from deprived backgrounds, but also acts as a beacon of best practice and education for a much wider area—nationally and internationally. The Minister would be spending his time well.

[Pat Glass]

I agree. The Minister smiled at that, so I am assuming that he has heard of Pen Green, which is known internationally for its outstanding provision. Margy Whalley will make him feel very welcome.

Nursery schools right across the country are providing outstanding outcomes for young children and I could give the Minister a long list that would start with Pen Green, but I want to mention just two. The Rachel Keeling nursery school is situated in one of the most deprived parts of London and yet has been identified in the “The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education” report as providing high-quality early education that has a continuing influence on its young pupils’ intellectual and social development and their subsequent progress in school.

Oxclose nursery school in Washington is another one that I know well. When I was working with parents in Sunderland in the early 1990s to include children with special needs in the mainstream, we thought, rather foolishly, that we would start with the easy end of SEN—children with less significant SEN and perhaps younger children—but it never works out that way. As soon as it became known that we were looking at inclusion, I received two phone calls. One was from a 14-year-old child who had spent her life in a special school because she was in a wheelchair and had brittle bones. We would think that amazing nowadays, but it was the norm in the 1990s—it appears that if someone stepped off a path and twisted their ankle, they would end up in a special school. The girl told me that she wanted to go to university and recognised that that was much less likely to happen if she continued to attend a special school.

The second phone call was from the parent of a two-year-old with quadriplegia—he had a little bit of head movement. He was a delightful little boy and he is a delightful young man now. His mother wanted, as was absolutely her right, mainstream school provision for her child. We definitely started with the more difficult end of SEN.

I worked closely with the head teachers of the Oxclose cluster, comprising the nursery, primary and secondary schools. The only thing that they had going for them at the time was that they were on the flat and close together. By far the most important factor, however, was that the head teachers of the three schools shared my vision of what inclusive provision should be.

If the Minister goes to Pen Green, which is halfway up the country, will he please go a little further and visit the Oxclose cluster in Sunderland? If he wants to see truly amazing, inspirational and outstanding provision that will move him, he could go nowhere better. Oxclose nursery school was truly inspirational then for all its pupils and is truly inspirational today. I strongly advise the Minister to visit any of the schools mentioned or any of the 400-odd nursery schools across the country if he wants to see outstanding early-years provision. Do it quickly, because that provision is under threat.

The very future of nursery schools is under threat in an era of local authority cuts, Government pressure on schools to expand reception classes, rising infant class sizes, the expansion of foundation provision and relentless Government pressure to push more and more children into schools earlier.

Nursery schools are facing constant pressure to merge with local primaries. A recent survey of nursery schools highlighted how maintained nurseries are on a knife edge, threatened by cuts in local authority funding, based on the flawed premise that they are simply one more form of child care and pressure from Government that funding levels for all providers should be the same, with no recognition of the special provision offered or of the way in which nursery schools can and do outperform every other form of early-years provision.

More than three quarters of nursery schools in the survey said that they were concerned about their immediate future viability or that they faced imminent loss of their independence. None faced immediate closure, but many said that they were at risk of closure in future, while only 12% said that they were optimistic about their future. Yet the Department for Education’s own child care and early-years parents’ survey for 2012 to 2013 highlighted that the value of nursery schools was beyond the number of children enrolled, acknowledging the vital role that they play in training early-years professionals throughout the sector.

The number of nursery schools has gradually eroded over the past 10 to 15 years. The Government need to look at that carefully. Ministers go all over the place to look for good practice, but seem to fail to recognise that we have outstanding practice in this country and we are letting it wither on the vine. I am calling on the Government to wake up before it is too late. They must recognise how good nursery schools are and the vital contribution that they make—not only to the children whom they admit, but to the training of early-years specialists throughout the sector. I call on the Government to stop the financial and educational neglect that is leading to an unstable future.

The right hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) mentioned the financial pressure on nursery schools. In 2010 the Government rolled 14 different grants into the single funding formula and they have subsequently rolled more grants into the early-years funding formula. That is what is putting nursery schools under pressure: the refusal to acknowledge that not all nursery provision can survive on the same amount of money. It is not about being equitable across the system but about recognising where good practice is and accepting that it does need to be paid for. Let us recognise that nursery schools offer the best and most successful provision in the early-years landscape and build on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said early in my speech, parents and their needs are the starting point. No one size fits all for early education and child care. We should accept that we have diverse provision and we should support those different forms of provision and ensure that, whether parents choose a childminder, a maintained nursery school or a private, voluntary or independent setting, they get the quality they expect. That has some relevance to priorities, which the hon. Member for North West Durham mentioned. There was a suggestion that somehow the Government’s priorities were biased against maintained nursery schools. In a time of austerity, we need a targeted and effective approach to the early years.

[Pat Glass]

The Minister is saying that we need a targeted approach, so will he commit to looking again at the report from the Education Committee and its recommendations for placing nursery schools at the centre of a network? Given the quality of the provisions, it seems sensible that they should sit at the centre of a network providing support and good practice for other provisions. He should commit to the Committee’s recommendations.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I am very aware of the Education Committee’s recommendations and I will come to some of the points in a moment. As the hon. Lady rightly said, we should not just look at what other countries do, but remember to praise the good practice in this country. There is great practice and some excellent and visionary practitioners in this country. There is a lot to be proud of.

We have universal provision for three and four-year-olds in this country so every three and four-year-old is entitled to 15 hours of child care. That is a tremendous achievement. The latest “Education at a Glance” report from PISA—the programme for international student assessment—puts us in the top 10 of OECD countries, which we can be proud of. More than 90% of three and four-year-olds in this country receive 15 hours of free child care at the moment.

On targeting, the Government have introduced the free early-years entitlement for two-year-olds, which will benefit 260,000 two-year-olds from the least advantaged families in the country who will receive 15 hours of care a week. We should be proud of that, but we must be targeted in how we use finite resources.

We have also introduced the early-years pupil premium, which is £300 a year for three and four-year-olds. I assure hon. Members that maintained nursery schools will receive the early-years pupil premium from 2015 and I hope that private voluntary independent organisations and maintained nurseries will use that to help to boost their ability to attract higher-quality staff for children in nurseries.

There is a lot to be proud of, and the Government have a plan and clear priorities for the early years. However, funding for maintained nursery schools is obviously an issue, and we fund that provision through local authorities to enable them best to make decisions for parents and children. Some 49 local authorities do not have any maintained nursery schools and 43 have only one or two. Therefore, a funded approach that treats maintained nursery schools differently would not be fair to those areas. Many areas of high deprivation have good inspection results in early-years foundation stage profile outcomes. Some make use of maintained nursery schools as part of local provision, but others are doing that with high-quality nursery classes in primary schools and private providers, not large numbers of maintained nursery schools.

Maintained nursery schools play an important role in many areas, but our approach, including that to funding, must ensure that parents retain a choice of early education provision that meets their needs and, whatever their choice, that they can be assured of high-quality provision. Maintained nursery schools are more costly than other providers, but it is for local authorities to determine funding levels. There are often good reasons for higher funding levels and many local authorities have chosen to retain them with their single funding formula, indicating that most deliver excellent value for money, but they are not the only solution.

Many primary school nurseries and private and voluntary providers offer high-quality, affordable early-years provision that is good value for money, and that provision must also be funded fairly. We must ensure the highest-quality provision across the board and our policy approach and funding decisions should reflect that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for another forceful point. As I said, it is in my in-tray. It is something that I am looking at, and at the appropriate moment, I will let him know what my thoughts are.

Ofsted assessments were also raised, I think, by the hon. Member for North West Durham. I assure her that from September 2014, Ofsted will give primary schools a separate assessment for their early-years provision.

[Pat Glass]

Ofsted will give a separate assessment for early years, but the Minister will no doubt be aware that that early-years assessment will include nursery classes, reception and year 1 and the foundation stage, and therefore will still not be a direct comparison against the nursery school, which is purely nursery years, prior to reception.

[Mr Gyimah]

There are different Ofsted inspections, depending on the type of organisation, but one thing that is not in doubt is the quality of the provision of maintained nursery schools. That is not in doubt at all.

In summary, I think that we all agree that maintained nursery schools provide excellent provision. They do a tremendous job in meeting local needs, especially in deprived areas. In a mixed economy, with maintained nursery schools, private and voluntary providers, and nursery schools in primary schools, they have a role to play. They have greater protection than other sorts of providers, and because there is a presumption against closure, the local authority has to think long and hard before embarking on closure. I shall bring my comments to an end by saying that, yes, we value them, but the starting point for this—whether we are looking at provision, quality or funding—should be parents, and when it comes to parents, there is no one size fits all. We should therefore support diversity of provision in the sector.