September is a time of change in nurseries. A group of children have left to start their school lives, taking with them everything they have learned in nursery. And others move through rooms, transitioning to their next step with you.

This year the change feels more momentous with some of the most significant upheavals of recent years landing at the same time. Change often comes with challenges but it can also present opportunities. At National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) we are continually promoting and defending the sector – promoting so you are able to maximise any opportunities and defending you against the extreme challenges which can arise.

We have seen the government’s language promote the value of school-based nurseries in meeting SEND need and for children’s transitions into schools. But promoting and defending our sector means highlighting that a child with SEND is more likely to be in a private, voluntary or independent (PVI) setting than a maintained one; that thousands of nurseries work closely with schools to ensure an effective, supported transition into Reception.

I want the sector to see NDNA as a lighthouse amid shifting seas – providing clear and strong messages from the sector to national and local government and helping providers navigate new choppy waters.

A rising tide of demand

The biggest change was announced by the chancellor in the Spring Budget 2023.  It has been ‘all systems go’ since then to be ready for the full implementation of 30 hours of funded childcare for children from aged nine months.

We have seen some great innovations, like ramping up apprenticeship places to meet staffing requirements and dedicated baby nurseries creating extra capacity. Our sector keeps showing how creative and resilient it can be to meet families’ needs.

One key issue has been the additional staffing needed to deliver this expansion. Our research revealed the scale of the issue, with 70% of nurseries able to offer more places if they filled their vacancies – on average four per setting.

At NDNA we have enabled your teams to have access to the latest training, tips and advice for working in and leading baby rooms. We have expanded our successful Childcare Works project into England, training people with the right life experience to give them the skills and knowledge to work in early education.

Government ministers have lauded the 18,000 new staff coming into the sector, which we have all played our part to achieve. But this still falls short of the government’s target of recruiting 36,000 early years staff.

Releasing damned up funding

We fought hard to ensure government money to support PVI nurseries to expand is actually reaching you. We know providers who have accessed grants from £175 million pots. But the experience of providers varies by local authority. Our Freedom of Information (FOI) research showed that progress on distributing the £75 million fund was behind schedule.

More shockingly, councils have only spent half of the £100 million capital fund they received nearly two years ago. Councils could not account for £65 million and we are following this up to push for further action. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to the support you need, but we will keep fighting for every penny to reach you.

Add this to the millions of pounds of early years funding annually which ends up in council contingencies or offsetting the High Needs block of the designated schools grant. Our FOI work has made progress in ensuring councils pass through a higher percentage of funding. However, there’s still more to do to ensure every penny for children’s early education makes it to the settings delivering their place.

Mapping the future strategy

The government has launched its new Best Start in Life strategy – its blueprint for what it wants to achieve for our youngest children and how it plan to do it. We have long called for a proper strategy for early education and care in this country.

We still have a great opportunity to be at the heart of government policy for early years, one of the prime minister’s key pledges. Despite the focus on the role of local authorities and expanding school-based nurseries, only 6% of under threes’ places are currently delivered in schools according to the latest data from 2024.

If the government wants to achieve its aims around more accessible funded childcare and improved quality – so important for children’s outcomes – it needs to ensure our sector succeeds and remains sustainable.

The consultation on early years funding is an opportunity. We will be arguing for our overly complex funding system to be overhauled so it’s more accessible for parents and less of an administrative burden for providers. We hope another manifesto call we made for the sector could be implemented – a single online childcare account for families to reduce complexity, increase take-up and ensure funding genuinely follows the child.

Another element of the strategy is to continue to fund new school-based nurseries. We gathered stories from across the sector about the first round, when some schools removed existing providers before applying for money to deliver nurseries themselves. Others ignored providers on or next to their school grounds and some councils wanted to shift PVI business models to suit schools’ needs.

We also heard from nurseries successfully partnering with schools to operate on their sites, with and without government support. One in ten of the new school-based nurseries (SBN) will be run by PVI providers.

The updated guidance for phase two of the programme goes some way to creating a more level playing field. Schools will have to show they are creating new places, not replacing PVI provision. They must show how they have considered the local market, how schools’ plans will not be “negatively impacting provision in close proximity, including that delivered by external providers”.

We collated childcare sufficiency assessments (CSA) for two-thirds of councils. One in three had not conducted a recent assessment on which to base these crucial decisions. We would urge anyone worried about local plans to contact their local schools and council to see what information exists about demand for places.

In the first round the government spent more than £6,500 per child’s place created in these new SBNs. By contrast, our Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that some councils were a lot more limited in the support they gave PVIs per new place created.

The final major change is Ofsted’s new inspection framework and report card structure. Ofsted has genuinely listened and acted on much of our feedback from the sector, including a focus on staff wellbeing and workload. There are many positives in these changes, but the tight turnaround before inspections start in November is not ideal. Some providers will take part in pilot inspections to see how the framework is applied in the real world. We will see what their experiences are and how Ofsted can learn from those.

We return to the question of equity – because there are still differences in the way early education is inspected and regulated in PVI nurseries compared to those in schools or maintained nurseries.

New minister, same challenges

This need for greater equity and fairness across the whole early years sector was top of my list when meeting the new early education minister, Olivia Bailey, on her first day in the job. We will be working closely with her and her team to get her quickly up to speed in this vital role for our youngest children.

We want to see greater fairness and equity across the sector. Time and again you show what you can do for children and families when you are given the freedom and opportunity to innovate.

We want equity for early years:

• Parity of funding between early education and schools.
• Parity between early years professionals and school staff.
• Early years funding not being used to plug holes in overstretched SEND budgets.
• The same focus on supporting PVI providers to create new places as schools receive.
• All early years settings judged by the same standards so parents can directly compare settings where school-based nursery report cards are available in the same format as for PVI nurseries.

Finally, we will continue to challenge language and rhetoric that downplays the value of our sector, or pits parents against providers with talk of “cheaper childcare” or “rip-off” nurseries.

We are in new waters, but all too familiar conditions. Ahead of more changes this autumn we will keep making the case that greater equity for early years is that mythical win-win-win – a win for children with greater access to high-quality early learning opportunities; a win for providers if funding is released and streamlined; and a win for the government in reaching its goal for giving children the best start in life.

At Nursery Management Show London 2025, Tim McLachlan will be speaking as part of a panel on Government Policy and Its Impact on the Sector.