In this blog post, two managers of independent nurseries critically review the expansion of publicly funded childcare in England to include children aged nine months. Specifically, we examine the strategy to utilise surplus classroom capacity in primary schools for this purpose (DfE, 2024). The policy is a government response to calls from campaigning groups such as Pregnant and Screwed for more state support for families and particularly for mothers. The Early Education and Childcare Coalition welcomed this policy development, but it has raised concerns about its implementation; chiefly in the context of an enduring recruitment and retention crisis in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce.

Do babies belong in primary schools?

In the English marketised system, 80 per cent of all nursery places for children from birth to age four are provided by private providers, the majority being small independent nurseries (Penn, 2024). However, the government’s main strategy to expand childcare at pace is to urge primary schools to step in and utilise surplus classrooms (DfE, 2024). By default, this strategy extends the remit of primary schools beyond their professional knowledge base to include ECEC for babies. Advocacy organisations urge service providers to think very carefully about provision for babies. For example, UNICEF’s Baby Friendly Standards provides an accreditation process for services to transform the care provided to babies. Most recently, the First 1001 Days Movement called for policy reform to ensure adequate staffing levels to support babies and provide safe care in all ECEC settings. Gooch and Powell’s (2013) research examined the quality of provision for babies in nurseries; they argued that arrangements for the care of babies required ‘a critical examination of public discourses, family values, [and] the cultural context of babies development’ (p. 6). More recent research by Halls and Sakr (2024) with baby room leaders in nurseries highlights the importance of reflecting on baby room pedagogies in order to challenge dominant developmentalist paradigms. A public conversation about baby room pedagogies and the quality of care for babies is absent from the current policy debates about the expansion of ECEC in England, with the result that babies’ needs are obscured from view. 

‘A public conversation about baby room pedagogies and the quality of care for babies is absent from the current policy debates about the expansion of ECEC in England, with the result that babies’ needs are obscured from view.’

Valuing the professional knowledge of independent nurseries

A further issue in the government’s plan to expand publicly funded childcare for babies relates to the positioning of longstanding small independent nurseries and primary schools within a competitive childcare market. This policy turn occurs without a full exploration of the implications for either mode of ECEC provision or for the care of babies. The National Day Nurseries Association found that the sustainability of independent nurseries is at risk because 415 nurseries closed between September 2022 and August 2024; with 38 per cent of closures taking place in the 30 per cent most deprived areas of England.

Here, the expansion of funded ECEC for babies can be conceptualised as a complex problem for policymakers. In this context, the problem is complex because of uncertainty in the ECEC system as well as value divergence between different stakeholders as to both the nature of the problem and the solution (Head, 2022). The complexity of the problem in the ECEC system in England is known (for example funding structures, workforce retention, availability of places); however, the proposed policy solution of expanding provision through primary schools is problematic, failing to take account of both the sustainability, complexity and diversity of the ECEC marketised provision in local contexts, and the professional knowledge base of nurseries about the care and education of babies.

Reimaging policy implementation

In this policy process government could pause to reflect on whose perspectives and voices are missing. By considering the expansion of ECEC provision as a complex problem, government is compelled to include leaders of independent nurseries, as policy actors, and value their knowledge (Head, 2022). Respecting professional knowledge of the care and education of babies emerging from independent nurseries, advocacy organisations and research could galvanise a public conversation about the suitability of primary schools as sites of education and care for very young children.

References

Department for Education [DfE]. (2024). Establishing school-based nursery provision. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/establishing-school-based-nursery-provision

Gooch, K., & Powell. S. (2013). The baby room: Principles, policy and practice. Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education.

Halls, K., & Sakr, M. (2025). Constructions of babyhood among baby room leaders in the UK. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 23(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X241279348

Head, B. W. (2022). Wicked problems in public policy: Understanding and responding to complex challenges. Springer International Publishing. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/53360

Penn, H. (2024). Who needs nurseries? We do! Policy Press.