REVIEW OF CHILDCARE IS NEEDED ‘URGENTLY’

NURSERY BOSSES IN CITY SAY LITTLE ONES COULD BE MISSING OUT ON SOCIALISING WITH OTHER CHILDREN

THERE are three under-fives for every childcare place in Coventry, new analysis has revealed.

An investigation into early years childcare by CoventryLive has shown that there are just 389 registered providers in our city, offering a maximum of 7,174 places to children under the age of five.

That is despite the fact there are nearly 23,300 under-fives living in Coventry.

The situation is even worse in some other parts of the West Midlands – in Walsall, there are six under-fives for every childcare place, and in Wolverhampton there are five.

It means many working parents will be forced to find alternative childcare, such as getting help from grandparents or other family members, and even taking time off work themselves.

Stacey Deacon, manager at Tiny Teddies Day Nursery in Chappelfields, Coventry, said: “Usually over the summer holidays it goes quieter and we have a lot of funded children.

“Once September comes back around we are completely full.

“We have had so many enquiries for under-ones and babies. And once they start with us they tend to stay with us until they go to school.

“We got a lot of calls from parents trying to find a space.

“It’s more the social side of things that children miss out on if they aren’t in a nursery.

“In a nursery there’s other children all the time but at home there might just be an aunt or a grandparent and they might not understand the concept of sharing things.

“We’ve found that it’s quite hard to teach an older one who has been at home with their grandparents; that’s one of the biggest problems we have.”

But over at Forest Fields Day Nursery at the city’s Canal Basin there are plenty of spaces for under-fives.

Manager Dyonne Jones said: “We do have quite a lot of spaces for babies from 12 weeks to two years old, but our two year olds are very full at the moment.

“There are spaces for three and four year olds too.

“We’re very outdoorsy and love to get the children exploring outside and getting them involved in messy activities.

“So what the children want to do is what we follow and get the learning objectives reached that way.”

Childcare providers for youngsters up to four years old are required to register with Ofsted on the Early Years Register – whether they are a childminder or a nursery. However, there are some exemptions to this, for example if the work is casual or unpaid.

It means there are likely to be a few more childcare places available in Coventry than those listed on the Register, but these are unregulated by Ofsted. The Early Years Register ensures that everyone providing childcare is suitable to look after children, and that everyone else on the premises is suitable to be in regular contact with them.

It is also there to ensure that childcare providers meet all the safeguarding and welfare and the learning and development requirements set by Ofsted. Of the childcare providers registered in Coventry, 38 were rated as outstanding overall in their last inspection, 261 were rated as good, 18 were considered to require improvement and one was deemed inadequate.

The remaining 71 did not have data available for their last inspection on the Ofsted website.

Megan Jarvie, Head of Policy at the childcare charity Coram Family and Childcare, said the group’s research showed only half of local areas have enough childcare for parents working full time. “This can mean parents are frozen out of work and children miss out on the boost to their outcomes that highquality childcare provides,” she added. “The shortages are even more acute for families with a disabled child or where parents do not work typical office hours, where less than one in four areas have enough childcare. “We need urgent Government action to improve the supply of childcare, particularly in deprived areas, including through providing start up grants for childcare providers and regularly reviewing their childcare funding rates to make sure they match the cost of delivering high quality childcare.”

Stacey Deacon Tiny Teddies Day Nursery It is more the social side of things that children miss out on if they are not at a nursery.