Sheffield primary school reports drop in number of nursery applications for next year

Beck Primary School, where Beck Nursery is located.

Beck Primary School, in Shiregreen, provides childcare to children aged two, three and four, as part of its early years provision.

The Little Beck and Nursery currently has capacity for 104 places – with a maximum of 52 children per session – and offers parents 15 hours of government-funded early learning childcare, across both it’s Little Beck and Nursery, as well as 30 hours for those who are eligible.

These are the faces of another 26 adorable babies who have been born to Sheffiel...

Children from Beck nursery celebrating the 'Outstanding' judgement for the early years provision last year

But, nursery leader Cathy Cooke has revealed there has been a drop in the number of applications for next year, as parents appear to be put off applying due to the coronavirus outbreak.

She said: “We normally have 26 of the 30-hour places and 52 of the 15-hour places – currently we’ve got quite a lot of the 30-hour places, around 21 children at the moment for September, but we’ve only got about 36 of the 15-hour ones.”

Ms Cooke said the nursery is “pretty much full” by now when comparing the numbers to the same period last year, with only a few spaces left which are normally filled in January.

“We’ve got a two-year-olds nursery as well and last September, that was very low on numbers – we’ve got 40 places but only had less than 30,” she added. “The numbers, I think, were down that year but then with those children moving up it had a knock-on effect. I don’t know if it was a low birth year or something.”

All three and four-year-olds are eligible for 15 hours of government-funded early learning childcare starting the term after their third birthday – with terms starting in January, April and September.

In Sheffield, this is called Funded Early Learning (FEL), with some children eligible for a total of 30 hours of free childcare, otherwise known as Extended FEL, if their parents or carers meet set criteria.

Ms Cooke said that, other than the potential of a low birth year, the fall in applications could be due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

She said: “We normally have a lot of parents that pop in for an application form between March and June and, although school has been open, I don’t know whether parents don’t feel confident or comfortable popping in and asking for one.

“A lot of our parents struggle with filling in the forms so there is normally a member of staff there to help which there hasn’t been since lockdown so I think it could be that, maybe a mixture of both.

“Before lockdown we’d get one or two parents a week, sometimes more, coming in. Health visitors as well would mention to parents that their child is eligible for nursery and obviously there hasn’t been as much face-to-face contact.”

In the long term, the low numbers will mean that the nursery will not receive the same funding it would if it were full, funding which helps to pay staff.

“If it continues to be low, or if we don’t manage to fill those places, we in a way will have surplus staff so in the future we’d perhaps have to look at reducing staff numbers,” Ms Cooke added.

According to a recent survey of more than 3,000 nurseries, pre-schools and childminders by the Early Years Alliance, one in four say they will have to close permanently within the next 12 months due to financial problems.

Some 74 per cent also think the government have not given them enough support to get through the crisis, the lobby group found, while nearly half of respondents revealed they may now need to make staff redundant and 37 per cent said that they would retract offers to top up staff wages.

Staff at Beck Primary and Nursery are still available throughout the current crisis to answer any application queries and to help parents who may have concerns about the nursery’s social distancing plans from June 1.

For more information email: [email protected]

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