A PRIMARY school’s council maintained nursery is likely to close and be replaced by a private operator.
Little Gems nursery already provides “wrap around” childcare for children aged three and over who attend the nursery at Durand Primary School in Caldicot and it is intended it will replace the local authority maintained school nursery as the setting providing approved funded early education from September.
If the plan, which will be subject to a six week consultation, is approved it would result in the age range of the school changing from three to 11 years to four to 11.
Councils have a duty under the Childcare Act 2006 to ensure families can access a minimum of 10 hours a week of early education from the term following their child’s third birthday until they are offered a full-time school place.
However since the Childcare Offer for Wales – that provides up to 30 hours a week funded early education and childcare to working parents – was introduced in Monmouthshire, during 2019 and 2020, parents have increasingly chosen non-maintained settings that are able to offer the full hours over school nurseries that only provide 12.5 hours a week.
Since its introduction numbers attending Durand Nursery have “reduced significantly”, according to a report by Monmouthshire County Council’s early years manager Sue Hall.
It has a capacity of 60 part time places, with 30 attending morning sessions and 30 the afternoon, but hasn’t been close to being full since 2018/19, when 58 youngsters attended, and some years the nursery has only required a morning session. The report states just 40 children were attending in the 2024/25 academic year.
Running the nursery class with “significant surplus places” negatively impacts the school budget and its most recent Estyn inspection judged teaching and learning to be good in most classes but noted classes for younger learners was an area for development.
A supply teacher currently leads the nursery class and the school would be able to redeploy the other nursery staff within the main school, which will avoid redundancies if the age range is changed and the school nursery replaced with a non-maintained setting.
Little Gems already runs two day nurseries in other areas of Monmouthshire that are approved for early education and Flying Start childcare.
It currently shares the same space as the school nursery, that opens until 11.30am, but Ms Hall’s report said: “This isn’t a long-term solution as it is difficult for two providers to share a space. It also limits the length of sessions the non-maintained setting is able to provide, and the owner of Little Gems has already expressed concerns that they won’t be sustainable in the long term if they can only offer part time places.”
The council’s Labour and Green Party cabinet is recommended to approve opening a consultation on changing the age range of Durand Primary and replacing the school nursery with an approved non-maintained setting on the school site.
The six week consultation would run from January 29 to March 13 if the recommendation is accepted when the cabinet meets on Wednesday, January 21.
