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Ministers Accused Of 'Punishing' Nurseries That Fail To Stay Open To All Children
Nurseries which fail to fully open during lockdown risk being financially “punished” by new government guidance on under-5s education, ministers have been warned.
Labour hit out after HuffPost UK discovered several councils have interpreted the new guidance on the 2021 Early Years Census 2021 to mean that cuts in funding could occur if not enough children attend their nursery this week.
The census is due to take place this Thursday, but local authorities have emailed head teachers to advise them to keep nurseries fully open to all parents in order to avoid official cuts in their headcount, itself linked to funding.
The Department for Education issued updated guidance on the census last week, which makes clear that it will take into account children not present because their parents have kept them off school, who are isolating or because of staff shortages due to the pandemic.
But in a little noticed move, it also suggested that any nursery that decided to restrict its current intake, for example just to children of key workers or vulnerable children, would have their numbers counted accordingly.
Barnet Council in London is among several who issued an urgent message to heads over the weekend warning them that if their nursery failed to fully open this Thursday there would be consequences.
In an email, passed to HuffPost UK, the council’s education director wrote “these changes do not apply to settings that restrict attendance only to vulnerable and critical worker children; in those cases, settings will only be able to claim funding for children who actually attend”.
“What it means for schools is that you need to communicate to parents that the setting is open with places available to all children on roll, subject only to any restrictions arising from the impact of coronavirus on the setting.
“You can place a limit on numbers if you need to for operational, health and safety reasons, and clearly you will want to prioritise places for vulnerable and critical...
