The Independent Schools Council is a politically independent, not-for-profit organisation representing 1,270 independent schools educating more than 500,000 children. It exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education, developing talent at all levels of ability and from all backgrounds.

Search by: Schools Site Suppliers

Enter Search Keywords:

The Treasury's Ten Year Strategy for Childcare

23 February 2005

Response from the Independent Schools Council

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) represents 508,000 children in 1,275 independent schools. In co-operation with its seven constituent associations, ISC works to ensure that the activities of independent schools are fairly and accurately represented to Government, in political and public debate, and in the media. Through its professionally independent inspection service, ISC seeks to ensure high educational and professional standards in its member schools.

The Independent Schools Council welcomes the Government's aim to give every child the best possible start in life by expanding choice and flexibility, and ensuring availability, quality and affordability in childcare. However, ISC is concerned that elements in the ten-year strategy will in fact decrease the chance of achieving these very aims (choice, flexibility, availability, quality and affordability). Our particular concern is that the goal of free high quality care is fixed at ‘38 weeks for all 3 and 4 year olds'.

Choice and Flexibility

The Sure Start ‘Code of Practice on the provision of free nursery education places for three and four year olds 2004-2005' stipulates in paragraph 31 that ‘in order to allow maximum opportunity for parental choice, LAs should encourage a diverse mix of maintained and non-maintained providers to offer free nursery education places'. The Government agrees, and recognises in the ten-year strategy for childcare that ‘families with children have diverse needs... they will have particular preferences about what kind of childcare is best for their child' [4.17].

The 38-week rule, if applied as a minimum, will have the effect of reducing choice by excluding provision of free nursery education by independent junior (prep or pre-prep) schools with nursery departments, where terms usually last no longer than 33 weeks. This will reduce not only choice but also quality: independent schools are consistently rated by OfSTED as the most successful settings for nursery education, so any impediment to independent schools continuing in the funding scheme would have a serious adverse effect on the quality of national nursery provision. If the statutory entitlement is fixed rigidly at its proposed new level of 38 weeks, and if this is the minimum provision which qualifies, parents at these schools will be unable to claim their free early education entitlement.

ISC urges the Government to change the wording to allow parents to take up to and including 38 weeks' entitlement of free nursery education. This would allow them to continue to use the service provider of their choice for their free entitlement.

Availability

If parents wish to send their children to independent schools but are unable to claim for fewer than 38 weeks a year, the Government will have shut off the availability of a significant number of service providers. This will affect not just parents but also Local Authorities in areas both rural and urban in which there are not enough maintained providers. In some Local Authorities, including several across London, the disappearance of independent schools from the scheme would mean insufficient provision for the number of children in their area. 888 ISC schools provide nursery care. Of these 888, 129 are in London. To exclude them from the scheme would have a serious effect on the availability of nursery care.

Quality

In 2000 OfSTED's Annual Report said that ‘the performance of independent schools and local authority nurseries is particularly commendable.[i] The following year 5,562 different nursery settings were inspected by OfSTED. In 2001 OfSTED reported that ‘the data indicate that variations in performance are greater in some provider groups than others. Independent schools, local authority day nurseries and private nursery schools are most successful in promoting progress towards the early learning goals'.[ii]

Affordability

The fees of independent prep schools vary, but in 2003 the range was between £900 and £1300 per term. At an increasing number of schools parents can pay in monthly instalments or receive discounts because a sibling is already at the school. There are also means-tested bursaries and other financial provision which enable families with limited means to obtain a place for their child at an independent school.

The Sure Start ‘Code of Practice on the provision of free nursery education places for three and four year olds 2004-2005' states in paragraph 106 that ‘parents should not be required to pay any fee for their child's free nursery education place, nor can they be expected to take up or pay for any additional services as a condition of a child attending a free nursery education place. If a child attends a provider that would normally charge fees, the fees charged should be reduced accordingly so that the basic entitlement is free at the point of delivery'. Paragraph 107 then qualifies this by saying that ‘parents may be charged for any additional services, such as childcare beyond their free entitlement to part-time nursery education that they choose to take up'.

Independent schools abide by this code: parents choose to take their basic entitlement free at the point of delivery for 2.5 hours a day, and then, to the extent that they are fee-paying, pay for the rest of the day or for other services. The fact that part of the service is ‘free at the point of delivery' makes an independent pre-prep education affordable for some parents where it would not have been otherwise, and thereby frees resources in the maintained sector.

Conclusion

As stated earlier, the Code of Practice stipulates that ‘in order to allow maximum opportunity for parental choice, LAs should encourage a diverse mix of maintained and non-maintained providers to offer free nursery education places' [paragraph 31]. In order to abide by this the Government should not exclude independent schools from the scheme. If parents are allowed to choose care for ‘up to and including' 38 weeks a year, this would not prevent them choosing an independent school with shorter terms, and would fulfil the Government's aims of providing all parents with choice, flexibility, availability, quality and affordability of childcare.

Rebecca Wildish

Independent Schools Council

23^rd February 2005

[i] The Quality of Nursery Education for 3 and 4 year olds 1999-2000 [HMI 237], OfSTED, 2000

[ii] Nursery Education: Quality of provision for 3 and 4 year olds 2000-01 [HMI 331], OfSTED, 2001