Why school nurseries aren’t the magic fix parents are being promised

On the face of it, the government’s plan sounds brilliant: more nurseries based in schools, more “free” childcare places, more choice for parents, but if you scratch beneath the headlines, the truth is far less shiny. Expanding nurseries in schools alone won’t solve the childcare crisis, and in fact, if the government doesn’t support the whole system properly, parents could end up with fewer choices, higher costs, and less flexibility.

Why this matters to families

Right now, most early years childcare in England isn’t delivered in schools at all. It’s delivered by private, voluntary and independent nurseries, and by childminders- thousands of small, community-based businesses that have kept families going for decades. In 2024 there were over 54,000 providers in total, but school nurseries make up fewer than one in five of those. Childminder numbers are falling fastest, leaving gaps that schools simply can’t fill.

When politicians say “let’s just put nurseries in schools,” they’re offering a simple answer to a complex problem. Here’s the reality for parents:

• Choice will shrink. Not every family wants their toddler in a school classroom setting. Parents value the home-from-home feel of childminders, the wraparound care of nurseries, and the flexibility that schools can’t always offer. If private and voluntary nurseries close because they can’t compete with government-backed school places, families lose that choice.
• Quality will suffer. The government is offering schools up to £150,000 in grants to create nursery spaces. That sounds a lot, but in reality it barely covers a basic refurbishment, not a purpose-built, state-of-the-art early years setting. Schools can do their best with what they’ve got, but it won’t match the rich environments many nurseries already provide.
• The numbers don’t add up. It’s not financially viable for the government to put a nursery in every school, and if the £150000 was put into making the hourly rate more reflective of the service, then more spaces would naturally become available. The childcare system needs hundreds of thousands of places, and most are currently provided by the private and voluntary sector. Squeezing them out without a plan to replace them means shortages, not solutions.
• Parents could pay more. Nurseries outside schools are warning that without fair funding, they’ll have no choice but to charge higher fees for hours outside the “free” entitlement. That’s bad news for parents who rely on longer days, holiday cover, or flexible hours that schools often can’t provide.

What families should be asking for

This doesn’t have to be a fight between schools and nurseries. Parents should be asking the government to:
1. Fund all providers fairly so that nurseries and childminders can keep offering funded places without going under.
2. Support wages across the sector so your child’s key worker is fairly paid and more likely to stay in the job.
3. Give the same financial relief to nurseries that schools get, like help with National Insurance costs, so everyone is competing on a level playing field.
4. Invest in choice- schools where it makes sense, nurseries and childminders everywhere else.

The bottom line for parents

Parents deserve affordable childcare that works around real family life. But betting everything on school nurseries is like promising every family a state-of-the-art centre when in reality the budget will only stretch to a basic add-on classroom. It sounds good now, but in the long run it risks fewer choices, less flexibility, and higher costs for you.

The childcare system isn’t broken because there aren’t enough school nurseries, it’s broken because government funding hasn’t kept pace with the real cost of delivering quality care. Until that’s fixed, parents will keep paying the price.