Memorandum submitted by Bordesley Green East Nursery

 

I am writing to express the concerns of all who work and attend Bordesley Green East Nursery & Children's Centre, staff, children, parents and Governors, about the current proposals and the implications of the Early Years Single Formula Funding in Birmingham.

 

As you are well aware all Early Years settings including the maintained, private and voluntary sectors providing for 3 and 4 year old children will be funded from one single budget.

 

This is going to have a massive detrimental effect on the maintained sector including ourselves.

Since the Nursery was opened in the 1940's, we have been able to offer free full time places for children in our local community; however from September 2010 we will only be able to offer part time places with the option for parents to pay for the remaining time.

 

Our main concerns are as follows:

With a third of our children on free school meals, and the vast majority of our families on low incomes, single parents, teen parents or no income at all, how can we expect to ask parents to pay for childcare and education?

As a Phase two Children's Centre covering 13 Super Output areas, we are dealing with some of Birmingham's most deprived, vulnerable and socially isolated children and families. Often these families are known to Social Services or Health, so although not on a CAF or CP plan, family support intervention is required. Often providing a full time Nursery place alleviates pressures in the home, allowing parents to receive the support required to improve parenting skills, access training or look for work.

Our family support workers are currently supporting many issues affecting families, including mental health, post natal depression, poor housing, language, drug and alcohol misuse and social isolation.

 

75% of our children enter Nursery well below the expected level for their age, a lot developmentally delayed. The staff work extremely hard to improve children's learning and development as recognized by our recent OFSTED May 2009.

With a cut in funding we will not be able to offer the same level of support or many of the enrichment activities that add so much to the fullness of our curriculum; ie: visits out or work with artists. These experiences enrich our children's lives, and positively impact on the children's Personal, Social and Emotional development, which also impacts on their level of progress.

 

Following many recent outstanding and good OFSTED inspections of the maintained sector in Birmingham, I feel we are best placed to support children in our communities who need it most.

Without any doubt EYSFF will lead to the loss of some highly skilled early year's practitioners as redundancy is imminent for many within the maintained sector; as well we feel the proposed criteria for the possibility of future funding for full time places circulated earlier this month totally disregard the majority of need within the authority.

With Birmingham only offering 2 and not 3 years safeguarding of funding it is also paying total disregard to the DSCF's guidelines on single formula funding.

 

Children don't enter Nursery with the same home life experiences, skills and development; to give every child equality of funding would in reality lead to vast inequalities for the most in need, this is purely just to support private businesses.

 

At present Birmingham has not taken into account the need for quality to be a key driver to determine their funding formula, this really concerns us as we have built our overall improvements on the need to improve quality throughout the Nursery, and now we are being called upon to support improving quality in the PVI sector; with future cuts this is one area we will find hard to support fully.

 

Most nurseries in Birmingham have developed integrated working to support the safety and well being of children. A reduction in funding will surely jeopardise this continuing.

 

Finally may we ask for your support in ensuring that Birmingham Local Authority continue to fund our most needy children at a level that supports their real needs and provides for a positive future for the citizens of this great city.

 

November 2009