A London school is offering staff guaranteed wraparound childcare places and a discounted on-site creche as Labour’s drive to deliver thousands of school-based nurseries opens up the potential for others to follow suit.
Michael Eggleton, the head of Charles Dickens Primary in Southwark, said the perks were helping to retain parent teachers who might otherwise leave the workforce.
It helped them to balance childcare around the logistics and timings of the school day, while also cutting childcare costs.
“I know it has prevented staff from leaving,” Eggleton said.
Charles Dickens provides free breakfast and after-school club provision from 8am to 9am, and 3pm to 5.30pm for the children of staff. This would cost £28 a day at full whack – or £560 a month if it were used each day.
Its on-site nursery currently takes two to four-year-olds, and staff are offered a 20 per cent discount – about £11 on its daily fees, which start from £55.
Nursery expanding but not a ‘cash cow’
From next year, it is planned to repurpose a spare classroom to allow the nursery to cater for children as young as nine months. Eggleton did not say how much the trial scheme costs the school. But he said although the nursery got “slightly less” income as a result, it still made a small profit. It was never meant to be a “cash cow”.
The school’s provision coincides with the government’s promise of 30 hours of free care for children aged from nine months up to school age.
Five staff at Charles Dickens have priority places to use the nursery, but must have a one-year contract to qualify.
Emma Sheppard, the founder of the Maternity Teacher/Paternity Teacher Project (MTPT) said it would be “a huge motivator for many parents to be joining or staying at a trust or a specific school”.
National figures show that existing capacity could not meet demand for childcare places this summer, with the Department for Education saying that 70,000 new places were needed above the “December 2023 baseline for autumn 2025”.
The government has pledged to open 3,000 school-based nurseries. Primaries can now apply for up to £150,000 capital funding to open provision.
Calls for national nursery offer for teachers
Cassie Buchanan, the chief executive of the Charter Schools Educational Trust, which Dickens is part of, said “It would be great if this was a national offer for teachers … and that feeds directly into the importance of all schools committing to the expansion of early years provision so there are enough places for everyone in great schools.”
The MTPT Project has recommended all 3,000 newly established school-based nurseries be allowed to give priority to children of school and nursery staff.
In 2023, 9,147 women aged 30-39 left the state education system – the largest single group leaving teaching, a report found. This compares to 3,400 men in the same age bracket.
Speaking to the BBC this week, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said this showed it was “too difficult to juggle family responsibilities with teaching and we need to turn that around”.
When MTPT interviewed 383 women who left teaching in the state sector in their thirties, nearly 40 per cent said access to on-site childcare would have helped them stay in the classroom.
It is already common In the NHS for on-site nurseries to give priority to staff and those working in the emergency services.
‘Benefit in kind won’t come at no cost’
Eggleton said as Charles Dickens is in central London, most staff commute in.
“Having a very young child in a nursery near your home, is challenging for a lot of people – who are then having to get on the train to work.
“So I’m realistic that a lot of these families would have chosen to find a primary school which was much closer to home if we hadn’t allowed them to have their children in our nursery. It has definitely kept staff.”
Charles Dickens is one of the government’s regional flexible working ambassador schools.
Buchanan said one of their values is being “evidence-informed”. The childcare trial suggests it is “beneficial for working parents, and we are looking to formalise this once our next round of staff evaluations has been gathered”.
But she added: “Any ‘benefit in kind’ won’t come at ‘no cost’, so we need to make sure we choose the right things and ‘and if we do offer it across the trust, how we offer it to all staff, including those in secondary schools.”
The trust also offers “duvet days” – where all staff can work a half-day once a term – and has 18 employees with flexible working arrangements
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