For some pre-schools, the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative (NNI) helped them to secure their future and expand their services. Now they are embracing the challenges posed by the Government's ten-year strategy and 22 have so far been designated children's centres.
Sunshine Corner Neighbourhood Nursery, Aylesham, Kent Sunshine Corner Neighbourhood Nursery and Out of School Club opened in 2004. It operates from a purpose-built building in the grounds of Aylesham Primary School in a deprived, former mining area of east Kent and has been chosen as a satellite children's centre.
'We offered sessional care and then moved to offering a lunch club and then an after-school club,' says centre manager Sara Garrity. 'We have a maintained nursery next door and we used to collect the children from the nursery and bring them to us for the lunch club and for the afternoon.
'We became an NNI because we were a 19-place pre-school with an extensive waiting list. We were in school premises where the school rolls were increasing and they needed the classroom we used. Now we've joined up with the maintained nursery.
'We work in the same building, giving the children continuity of care. We are registered for 86 children and are completely full. About 40 to 50 children will do one full day a week and eight children do 8am to 5pm every day.
'We have babies from six weeks, which we didn't at the pre-school. In the main room we have children aged two to five years old and in the nursery children aged three to five years old.
'We sort the headcount out among ourselves. As far as the parents are concerned it is all one nursery. It is nice for them that they have these two organisations working as one. It is generally good for the staff too.
'There are some differences. The local authority can pay better than we do.
We have a teacher who is here on this site 75 per cent of her time and splits that between the maintained nursery and us. Once the children's centre funding pulls out, we will be expected to pay something towards her time with us. There is no way now that we can afford such additional costs.
'Pay is not the only difference: the teacher is about to break up for five weeks' holiday whereas the rest of the staff will carry on through the holidays.
'Staffing is a problem because some of them wanted to change their hours when we went to opening from to 8am to 6pm. They are parents and don't want to be still at work when their children finish school.
'Because of the type of organisation that we have now become, open such long hours, you need full-time staff.
'It is much more involved. We have keyworkers, we are caring for tiny babies, and we have the responsibility of our own building. We used to have a committee of parents, but basically they didn't want to take on the extra responsibility for everything in the building and didn't have the time to commit themselves to all these things, but we do have a parents advisory committee.
'We don't get many parent volunteers now. I think parental contact may become more family oriented. We did a trip yesterday with 70 children and only 11 didn't come with parents.
'Funding is an issue. It is always going to be an issue in an area like this. We cannot charge fees at a level to pay for everything. We have to be very wary about what we charge our parents. This area is never going to be self-sustaining. Our overheads are high: we have a ratio of 1:2 in the baby room. We tried 1:3 but with babies as young as six weeks it was impossible.'
Hopscotch Neighbourhood Nursery, Halton, Cheshire Woodside Playgroup underwent several name changes and moves over the years before metamorphosing into Hopscotch Neighbourhood Nursery, Halton, Cheshire.
'The Pre-school Learning Alliance was looking for groups to get involved in the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative and this group came forward,' says Veronica Newbolt, the manager.
'We are in a redundant infant school, which closed because of falling school rolls. We had been hoping to open for two years but it took a long time to get all the legal work done for the lease.
'The pre-school closed in July last year but we weren't able to open the nursery until November. For a while the pre-school staff thought the venture was never going to happen. We were a 24-place sessional pre-school and now run a 60-place nursery which is open from 8am to 6pm.
'We are a children's centre and share the building with the local Sure Start and have got health services here too. We have health visitors, pre- and post-natal sessions and sessions for mums and babies. Social services use it for family contact sessions and we provide a creche for Sure Start when they are running courses.
'It is a very busy building. It has been well received in the local community. We opened a community cafe in the old dining hall and the kitchen provides the food for the nursery.
'An advantage of the delay was we were able to build up good relationships with the Sure Start project, which I know is unfortunately not always the case in some children's centres.
'I worked with the local borough council on projects in the past because I was a support worker for the PLA. So, I already knew people working for the other agencies, which is why we have been able to move things forward.
'We got funding from the usual sources: the lottery, the local borough council, which is very forward thinking, and some from the European Social Fund. Also Sure Start have done a lot for us too. It is a National Children's Home Sure Start and they developed the outside areas for us.
'We will continue to be open in the holidays and are offering holiday cover for children in the first year of school. My staff team is fairly new so I don't feel we can offer the out-of-school facilities to the older children as yet.
'It is something we are looking to develop over the next year. The primary school next door has opened an after-school club but does not want to do holiday cover so we are negotiating with them.
'We try to work together and to avoid duplicating what the primary school has to offer. The school has a nursery on site. We have lost 30 children this year - some going into school, some going into the nursery. We aim to work alongside the nursery and have a pick-up service from the nursery.
'Most of our parents just want their nursery education grant sessions and do not want full daycare. Part of our remit is to support parents back into work.
'Although we are full in terms of numbers we have spare capacity. I was not here initially and, when I came in, we had lots of children but not doing that many hours so there was a lot of spare capacity. I have spent the last few months trying to balance the hours out.
'We are very flexible and will help people if they only want a day or a half day. You need to do that to get people in. We have a staggered entry throughout the day.
'We do have some spare capacity which can be helpful as we get referred families by social services when they need additional support.
'We have so many different nurseries opening in the area that we are all fighting for the same staff. We have very good local training; the problem is I want to employ experienced workers. I have quite a new team that have come out of college and I have some mature people who worked in the pre-school. I have to strike a balance to get a good fit in the team.
'We pay no better than anybody else does but we probably have slightly better working conditions, so our girls do a seven-and-a-half hour day, not the 8am to 6pm that others nurseries want.'