Additional £24m funding for maintained nurseries

Children and Families Minister, Nadhim Zahawi, recently announced additional funding of £24 million for maintained nursery schools, during a keynote address at the Manchester School Readiness Conference.

The Department for Education has already provided supplementary funding to local authorities to enable them to protect maintained nursery school funding up until the end of March 2020, however what happens after this is yet to be decided.

Recognising the difficulties this will cause maintained nurseries and local authorities, leaving them uncertain as to whether the 2020 summer term will be fully funded, the government will provide a further £24 million to enable maintained nursery schools to offer places safe in the knowledge that these will be funded for the full 2019/20 academic year.

The minister also announced the development of an early language assessment tool, in partnership with the University of Newcastle, as well as the publication of early language pathway guidance to support local areas to develop and implement their own pathway.

You can read the full address here.