‘Free’ childcare expansion: a nursery view

In the lead-up to the expansion of ‘free’ childcare to nine month olds for eligible working parents in England, workingmums.co.uk has been talking to nurseries in different parts of the country to find out about how they are preparing.

One is Happy Bunnies Nursery School in Shepreth in the relatively affluent area of South Cambridgeshire. It has seen a change in management and approach in the last 17 months under the ownership of Robert Fox. Last September, it went from a pre-school model that operated from 9-4pm in term time to an 8am to 5pm model that included one year olds.

Fox has worked with children since the age of 15 and was most recently an Ofsted inspector. During the pandemic he was a children’s nanny. And he definitely has a big vision for early years with a focus on high quality interactions and experiences. “I have flipped the model,” he says. The nursery is set in a village hall with two side rooms and no free outside space. Fox says he uses the community as his ‘third teacher’, taking the kids out on trips to libraries, to the train station and around the area. “We use the environment. We are always out and about,” he says. “My approach to learning is active. For me learning evolves in hidden opportunities, not with children sat at desks.” That means that rather than being a quasi-school environment, it is all about nurturing individual children through play.

That approach harks back to Fox’s own experiences of the education system. Having struggled through school and developed his own way of learning at his own pace, he was diagnosed with dyspraxia at university. “I did things in my way and that makes me more empathetic to children’s needs. For me the nursery is like a home from home, like a big disjointed family,” he says.

Recruitment

He has hired people of all ages, many of them mums or grandparents to give it that homely feel and to benefit from their experience. One of the big challenges has been to communicate his ideas and ways of doing things, particularly as they may not conform with the typical school preparation. To this end, Fox has sessions with parents, including induction sessions, potty training workshops, talks by sleep coaches and child development and health experts and he even has a ballet teacher.  The focus is on the whole child and on core skills and experiences. The wellbeing of staff is also vital. One practitioner loves to cook and she sometimes cooks a meal for Fox to take home with him. “We all look after each other,” he says.

While recruitment is a big issue in the sector, Fox says that offering the right pay, a good supportive network and a sense of being cared for has helped him to build his team. He has recently hired an additional three members of staff in order to cope with the increase of spaces at the nursery due to the extension of ‘free’ childcare as well as introducing a new section of the nursery to accommodate more children aged from 12 to 18 months. He is critical about the way funding works and that nurseries in different areas get different rates, depending on what their local authority holds back to cover other costs. He feels it encourages a ‘pile them high’ mentality at the expense of quality, particularly when it comes to babies who attract higher government funding than pre-schoolers.

Sustainability

In order to remain a sustainable business, Fox says he has to charge parents the 10.75 pounds he will receive from the Government for nine month olds, rather than the 5.40 pounds he gets for three and four year olds, which doesn’t cover the full cost of provision and would mean he was operating in deficit – something that will only get worse as the minimum wage and other costs rise. He does, however, make allowances for some parents on lower incomes and for SEND children. He also charges extra for things like nappies and snacks which parents can opt out of.

He thinks parents are not very sure about how the system for childcare support works, in part because it is complex and in part because it keeps changing, and also that the free 15 or 30 hours are only in term time. They can be spread across the year, but that means fewer ‘free’ hours.  

Fox would like to see the term ‘free childcare’ changed because it undervalues the importance of quality early years education and misrepresents the way early years sector has to run. For him it’s about valuing what early years offers children, how it shapes unique individuals and how it sets them off on a good footing for life.

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