Many childcare providers in England will be forced to limit the number of Government-funded places on offer to parents and increase prices due to financial pressures, a charity has warned.
Early years settings face a “perfect storm of challenges” due to national insurance and minimum wage rises and “many will not be able to survive”, according to the Early Years Alliance (EYA).
A survey – of 1,155 senior staff in nurseries, preschools and childminders in England – found 59% of providers are likely to either reduce the number of funded places they offer for three and four-year-olds or they could opt out of offering funded places for this age group entirely.
More than nine in 10 (94%) said their setting is likely to increase fees for non-Government funded hours over the next year, while more than three in four (77%) said they are likely to introduce or increase charges for optional extras – such as nappies, meals and trips.
Nearly three in 10 (28%) said they are likely to permanently close the entire setting over the next year, the poll suggested.
The findings come as the Government’s expansion of funded childcare for working parents is being rolled out in England.
Working parents of children older than nine months are now able to access 15 hours of funded childcare, before the full rollout of 30 hours a week to all eligible families in September.
Among the survey respondents currently offering funded places for two-year-olds, 18% said they are likely to reduce the number of funded places they offer, while a further 5% said they could opt out of the scheme entirely.
The EYA survey – carried out online between March 4 and 11 – found that only around a third (36%) of providers currently offering funded two-year-old places for working families are planning to extend all these places from 15 hours to 30 hours a week from September...read more
Pupils from Cardinal Heenan High School took part in a debate hosted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at No. 10 Downing Street. The event, part of Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day 2025 partnership with Debate Mate, saw young people debate the motion: “This house believes that youth leadership is the best way to tackle the world’s most pressing issues."
The Debate Mate programme, designed to encourage young people to engage with global issues, brought together teams of students from Cardinal Heenan High School in West Derby, and Sacred Heart School in Camberwell, London. After months of hard work and competition from schools across the UK, the winning pupils last week found themselves debating at the heart of the UK's government.
The pupils were also given the rare opportunity to meet and quiz Sir Keir directly. The pupils asked questions ranging from, “What were you like at school?”, “Do you get nervous when you are going into a speech?”, “Where do you go for lunch?”, and “What skills do you think are most important for debating?"
As he introduced the debate, the Prime Minister said: "Welcome to my house, but it’s also your house and it’s been inspiring to meet you all, and I'm certainly going to be watching the debate to see if I can pick up any tips for Prime Minister's Questions.
"This is all about the skills for debating, but they are also really important skills for life, the ability to say what you think, to be confident, to work in a group, so this is a really wonderful opportunity. I’m really proud you are here."...read more
Children in the most deprived areas of England will get access to a programme to help protect them from tooth decay, the government has announced today.
The supervised toothbrushing programme will be rolled out in early years settings and primary schools, with funding available from April, helping hundreds of thousands of children aged between 3 and 5 years old to develop positive brushing habits.
The scheme – a manifesto commitment – will be launched in collaboration with Colgate-Palmolive who are providing free Colgate toothbrushes, toothpaste and educational materials to continue good work at home.
This government inherited a children’s oral health crisis. The most common reason children aged 5 to 9 being are admitted to hospital is to have treatment for decayed teeth. Latest data shows one in 4 children aged 5 have experienced tooth decay in England, with higher rates of up to one in 3 in more deprived areas.
The scheme will help tackle these levels of poor health by ensuring they get the support they need to learn positive habits and prevent tooth decay – in turn avoiding related illness and poor health later in life.
To deliver the scheme, the government is investing a total of £11 million in local authorities across England to deploy supervised toothbrushing in schools and nurseries that voluntarily sign up. Local authorities will work to identify early years settings in target areas and encourage them to enrol...read more
Early figures from councils indicate that in some parts of the country more than a quarter of families have not been given a place at their first choice secondary school – with almost a third of Liverpool Year 6 leavers missing out.
Hundreds of thousands of families across England received their school places on Monday (March 3), on what is commonly known as National Offer Day.
Findings from a PA news agency survey of local authorities show that, of the 70 councils that gave comparable data, 44 have seen a rise in the proportion of pupils getting their first choice compared with last year, while 24 have seen a fall, and two have seen no change.
In addition, of 63 councils in England that gave information on application numbers, 46 have seen at least a slight fall in applications this year, while only 17 have seen a rise
Nearly three in 10 children in London missed out on a place at their top choice of secondary school, figures collated by London Councils have shown. The number of applications for secondary school places in the capital fell by 3.1% this year – and London Councils said a falling birth rate has played a part.
Across the capital’s 33 boroughs, 71.6% of families were given their first choice of secondary school this year, compared with 70.5% last year. Greenwich had the lowest proportion of children getting their top choice at 63.82%, and in Lewisham just 63.89% secured their first preference.
Meanwhile outside London, in Liverpool only 69% of children were given a place at their first choice for this coming September - similar to last year’s figures of 69.4%. In Manchester, only 74% got their top choice....read more
Today marks the start of National Careers Week (NCW), an annual celebration dedicated to empowering young people to become more aware of their career choices and help them get support needed to start their journey.
It runs from Monday 3 March to Saturday 8 March 2025 and will see schools, colleges, universities, teachers, career leaders and career advisers celebrating Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG), which ultimately prepares young people for life after education. It also enables students to make well-informed decisions on their future prospects.
NCW provides quality free resources and links education with the world of employment to ensure students get an important insight to the future of work and further learning. Better informed students result in better decision making.
To find out more information about how you can get inspired and involved with National Careers Week you can visit their website.
Children from poor households should be enrolled for free school meals automatically to prevent thousands going hungry, a report by MPs has found.
The education select committee called for the change "without delay", warning that pupils who should be fed free of cost are missing out because their parents have not signed up to the scheme.
As of June 2024, around 2.1 million children were known to be eligible for free school meals in England - nearly a quarter of pupils.
A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said the government "welcomed" the proposals and would carefully consider the recommendations.
In England, families are eligible to apply for free school meals if they are on universal credit and have a household income below £7,400 per year, after tax, alongside other benefits.
However, the committee heard evidence from an expert who estimated that one in 10 children in poverty are not receiving the meals.
Earlier this month, Kate Antsey, of the Child Poverty Action Group, told MPs, external that it was often because of language barriers or difficulty with the administrative process experienced by their parents.
Another estimate published, external in April 2024 by the think tank Policy in Practice put the number of children needlessly missing out on free school meals at 471,000.
The cross-party education committee said the government should change the current rules using the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill - which is currently making its way through Parliament - to remove the need for manual enrolment...read more
A poll by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has found that children’s enjoyment of listening to audiobooks had risen. NLT are petitioning the government to include audiobooks in the national curriculum.
A new study by the National Literacy Trust (NLT), a charity that campaigns for higher literacy across the UK, has found that a significant percentage of children now consume literature through audiobooks.
For the first time since the NLT started surveying listening habits, more children said they preferred listening to books (42.3%) over reading them (34.6%).
The Annual Literacy Survey of children’s reading habits, run since 2010, surveyed children in England, Wales and Scotland from ages five to over 16s.
Of the 66,008 children who took part, 42.3% (or 37,893) said they listened to audiobooks in their free time. Although it’s only a slight increase on the 2023 findings, it is a significant figure for the NLT as they found the lowest number of children reading for pleasure since 2019. Just over a third of children said they enjoyed reading in their free time.
Around half of listeners said that they found audiobooks were a good way to “relax or feel better when stressed or anxious” (52.0%) and that the format made it easier to understand the story (48.4%).
Encouragingly, half of these respondents (52.9%) also said that they found they used their imaginations more when listening to audiobooks. A similar number also said that audiobooks encouraged them to enjoy reading in their free time...read more
Families and children in every corner of England will soon benefit from free, daily breakfast clubs as the government is set to confirm the first 750 schools to offer the scheme, putting up to £450 a year back in parents’ pockets.
From as soon as April, chosen schools across all nine regions will kick-off the historic programme, with an early adopter phase set to inform the government’s landmark national roll out which will give all parents access to the scheme.
Delivering on promises made to working parents in the government’s manifesto, all primary aged children in early adopter schools will be able to access a free breakfast and at least 30 minutes of free childcare, every day, helping to support parents getting into work by dropping their children off half an hour earlier.
Schools are encouraged to offer healthy, varied and nutritious breakfasts, with examples from wheat bisks and porridge to fresh fruit and yoghurt. The early adopter schools also provide the perfect setting to host activities including arts and crafts, educational puzzles, reading and more.
Universal free breakfast clubs are central to the government’s Plan for Change, removing barriers to opportunity by making sure every child starts the school day ready to learn – with research showing the clubs can have a lasting impact on children’s behaviour, attendance and attainment.
Making sure no child starts school hungry, the scheme also has an important role to play in the government’s commitment to remove the stain of child poverty, as out of the 180,000 children who will benefit in the early adopter schools, around 67,000 attend schools in deprived areas.
The clubs come alongside a raft of measures designed to cut the cost of living for families, including the commitment to significantly cut uniform costs through a cap on branded items and complement government-funded childcare...read more
