provision to meet the demand for funded places for two-year-olds in
communities in the north of England. Katy Morton investigates.
Delivering high-quality care to children in some of the most deprived parts of the country is providing opportunities for two nursery groups.
Happy Kids Childcare, which was established in 2012 to deliver free places for disadvantaged twos, and threeand four-year-olds, has rapidly expanded, opening nine nurseries within the space of 14 months.
Steve Scott, one of Happy Kids' four managing directors, says, 'Our aim was to fill a gap in the market for good quality, flexible provision primarily for no or low-income families within their community. Non-working families find distance a barrier and as such will not often travel to settings.'
The nurseries, all of which have been rated good with outstanding elements by Ofsted, are open from 8am-6pm all year round.
'We identified nine highly deprived communities across Barnsley, Rotherham and Manchester lacking in childcare and with a large number of disadvantaged twos,' explains Mr Scott, who used to work for a local authority where he was involved in assessing whether there were enough two-year-olds' places.
The nursery group opened its first setting last January in Goldthorpe in Rotherham, followed by a further seven nurseries in September and October 2013, and another in March this year.
The two settings in Manchester are based in former children's centre buildings, where Happy Kids delivers childcare on behalf of the council. Four out of the five nurseries in Barnsley are co-located with local authority adult learning centres.
Addressing the unmet needs of disadvantaged families is also the focus of the Big Life Group, a social enterprise that has been providing children's services for more than a decade.
The group established its first early years setting in 2004 and last year took over the management of five nurseries, as well as offering places for disadvantaged two-year-olds at one of its two children's centres. In September, it opened its seventh nursery, the sixth to operate within a children's centre.
All of its nurseries and children's centres are based in deprived communities across Manchester and Stockton -on-Tees, and operate under the Big Life Families brand. In September the group also opened its first school - Longsight Community Primary, alongside its Aisha nursery at Longsight Children's Centre in Manchester - in response to a local shortage of primary school places. The group is to open a second free school, Unity Community Primary in Cheetham, Manchester, next year.
The nurseries started after the Big Life group gave backing to local parents wanting to set up childcare provision in their area. This spurred the social enterprise to look at the needs of the other communities in which it was already involved, providing services such as self-help and health and well-being centres.
Overall, close to half of Big Life's nurseries have been rated good by Ofsted, although three of the five nurseries the group took over this year were graded 'requires improvement'. The group is working hard to improve these, says Emma Perry, the group's assistant director of schools and nurseries.
Two-year-olds
At Happy Kids Childcare, 80 per cent of children who attend the nurseries are disadvantaged two-year-olds, while nearly half of the Big Life Group's nursery places are taken up by eligible twos.
Steve Scott explains, 'Most of our disadvantaged two-year-olds attend for just the 15 hours, although the numbers accessing additional sessions are increasing as the criteria for eligibility expands to include a higher proportion of working, but low-income families.
'As children start with us when they are two, rather than three as was often the case previously with children from non-working families, we have longer to work with children's behavourial issues, improve their communication skills and develop their social and emotional skills, all of which are key to being ready to start school.'
Sustainability
Aware that making the financial sums add up can prove particularly challenging when managing settings in deprived communities, both nursery groups have strategies in place to ensure their sustainability.
For Happy Kids Childcare this has meant opening nurseries in areas where operating costs are lower and the free entitlement funding exceeds the amount that parents can afford to pay in fees.
'We decided upon the north of England as the region we wanted to operate in as the average price paid for delivering the free entitlement here is greater than the price you can charge for fees, meaning it is still profitable to deliver funded early education places almost exclusively and maintain quality levels,' explains Mr Scott.
Around 75 per cent of parents across Happy Kids Childcare's nurseries are eligible for free childcare, while 25 per cent pay fees.
Mr Scott says the rate they receive in Barnsley for disadvantaged two-year-old places is higher than Rotherham and Manchester and just about covers costs. The amount they receive for threeand four-year-old places covers costs in all three local authority areas in which they are based. If settings are close to capacity - which currently they are - they even make a small profit.
However, Mr Scott says it can prove tricky managing finances as not every local authority pays the free entitlement funding in advance, which means they have to recoup the money.
But operating within three specific regions, with settings only short distances from each other, means that the chain can save on staff costs.
'When a member of staff is on leave or sick, we can replace them with another employee from a different setting that is more than meeting ratios, which works out cheaper than going through an agency', explains Mr Scott.
'Some say that having less disadvantaged children will be easier to manage than the more disadvantaged. We find, however, there is no difference if you manage your provision well - ultimately they always came to us at three anyway and we manage', he says.
Like Happy Kids, the Big Life Group also finds it a challenge to ensure it can cover costs through the free entitlement and the fees its working parents can afford to pay.
Currently, the majority of the group's nursery places are taken up by funded two-, threeand four-year-olds, but Ms Perry (pictured at Big Life's Slade Lane nursery in Manchester) says that the level of funding varies according to the local authority and is not always enough. Consequently, the group is hoping to increase the number of places taken up by babies and working parents.
According to Ms Perry, Big Life's strategy of employing local people from the communities where the nurseries are based also helps to sustain them, as well as supporting the social enterprise's commitment to help more parents into employment.
Linguistic diversity
'Another benefit of recruiting locally is that it helps open up communication with parents where English is their second language', says Ms Perry.
'More than 80 per cent of families at our Longsight campus have English as an additional language. Similarly, Cheetham Park, where we run a nursery within a children's centre, is thought to be the most diverse community in England, so having a multi-language team of staff and volunteers is extremely important.'
Happy Kids Childcare, which also operates in communities where English is an additional language for a large number of families, has found the best way to communicate with families about how well their child is progressing is to use straightforward language and pictures.
The group has renamed the progress check for two-year-olds 'This is me at two', providing parents with a colourful visual account of how their children are doing at nursery as opposed to just a written summary, which Mr Scott says is unlikely to be read or understood by families whose first language is not English or those that are 'anti-establishment'.
Staff
Recognising that staff need to be highly skilled to deliver the best-quality care to disadvantaged children, both Happy Kids Childcare and the Big Life Group stress the importance of staff development and training.
Both nursery groups run an apprentice scheme and employ managers with level 5 qualifications.
Many of Happy Kids Childcare's managers have been promoted from room leaders.
The Big Life Group, which employs a teacher to oversee the quality of its seven nurseries, also has a volunteer programme. Ms Perry says this has led to employment opportunities for a lot of parents within the group's services, including their primary free school and nurseries.
- See the supplement in full here
