Jean Ensing, president of Early Education (BAECE) and a co-ordinating consultant for the Department for Education and Skills on the Forum for Maintained Nurseries, said that since the initial 7m package was announced last autumn, 40 out of 117 local education authority areas had revealed their plans.
She said, 'Many nursery schools have been providing extra services for years, such as breakfast, holiday and after-school clubs. We have told them they don't need to re-invent the wheel. But there is a chance, which many are taking up, to use the money to refurbish premises or provide wraparound care for toddler and childminding groups or provide facilities for families with children with special needs.'
Ms Ensing said nursery heads had pressed for funds to re-develop their outdoor areas 'because they recognise how important the outdoor curriculum is for young children's educational development and how it suffered when the national curriculum was introduced'.
She said the Government's injection of a further 5m over the next three years, announced in March, had given nursery heads, LEAs and Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships a chance to develop an ongoing strategy for renewal.
Ela Robinson, head of Oxclose Community Nursery School in Sunderland, is co-ordinator of the project for the area's ten nursery schools. She said, 'This was a positive process. Heads were able to show goodwill towards their colleagues and adjusted their own wish lists in order for other ideas to go ahead. Some took very little from the pot as others needed large capital investments.'
As head of the Robert Owen Early Excellence Centre in Greenwich, London, Judy Stevenson did not qualify for these funds but was involved in the local consultation process. She said, 'Nursery schools were dying a death and this has given them a new lease of life.'