Nurseries fear invasion of nappy-wearing 2-year-olds as free childcare plan starts
NURSERY school children risk missing out on vital learning because their teachers will be grappling with an influx of nappywearing two-year-olds from April, experts warned last night.
More than 100,000 parents have signed up to claim 15 hours of free childcare for two-year-olds under a new £8billion scheme.
But short-staffed nurseries – many of which are based in primary schools – warn they will not be able to cope with soaring demand.
Three-quarters of nurseries in England already have long waiting lists for one- and two-year-olds, and two-thirds would need to extend their premises before they could accept more children.
It is feared that two-year-olds – who still need naps, have limited vocabulary and many are still in nappies – could end up in the same classroom as three- and four-yearolds who should be learning basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Currently, eligible working parents of three- and four-year-olds can get 30 hours of free childcare
‘You have to watch toddlers like a hawk’
per week. The expansion will include youngsters aged between nine months and four years from September 2025. This will be rolled out in stages, with working parents of two-year-olds able to access 15 hours per week from April.
‘I question whether the school environment is the best place for the specific needs of two-year-olds,’ said Nicola Demetriadi, a lecturer in early childhood. ‘Their needs are very different from those of threeand four-year-olds.’
The Government’s ‘universal childcare’ plan, announced last year, was hailed as giving children the ‘best start in life’.
But a report has now questioned this claim. In its review of 40 studies on formal childcare in the UK and abroad, Right-wing thinktank Civitas said there was a ‘worrying lack of support’ for many supposed benefits.
The Government said the free childcare scheme would save working families £6,500 a year and promised a £1,000 ‘golden handshake’ to newly recruited earlyyears staff in 20 pilot areas.
Education Minister David Johnston said he was ‘confident’ that ‘whatever local authority you are in, there will be the places that are needed for... two-year-olds’.
But a Department of Education pilot scheme in 2013 to provide additional free childcare hours to deprived families found almost all the primary schools involved placed two- and three-year-olds in classrooms together. Schools also struggled to find staff with the right level of training.
Jonathan Broadbery, director of policy at the National Day Nurseries Association, said: ‘They say you have to watch toddlers like a hawk, and it’s true. Specialist earlyyears settings are geared up to have the environment and staff to understand that stage of development and provide an environment that is suitable.
‘It is not just a case of thinking we will buy some smaller chairs.’
Last night, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told the MoS that the decision to send children to nursery should be down to ‘individual parental choice’.
‘You probably develop more in that first preschool than in your whole life,’ she added. ‘We want to help working parents, and women in particular, to not have to make that choice between a career and a family... because they think the cost of having a child – and childcare particularly – is too prohibitive.’