The government has promised many new nurseries based in primary schools – but where are they opening?

Credit: Mat Wright for UCL IOE.

22 January 2026

By Alice Bradbury, Rodie Garland, UCL Institute of Education, and Kerstin Sailer, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture

One of the government’s flagship policies in relation to education is the creation of ‘over 4,000 school-based childcare places’ from September 2025, through funding for nurseries based in schools. These places are either in separate nurseries on the school site – run by the school or a private provider – or extra places in the traditional nursery classes for 3–4-year-olds that have been run by primary schools for decades. The school-based nursery (SBN) policy is part of the government’s attempts to, in their words, “help parents get to work”, allowing families to “access high-quality early education and get the best start in life”.

Our current research is exploring how schools are using their SBN funding to open new nurseries, and we have seen examples of excellent nurseries where children are thriving. As part of this we have analysed which 300 schools were awarded the first set of capital grants to offer new early years places in September 2025 and found a rather different picture from how the policy has been presented. This suggests that the implementation of this policy may be rather more complex than first thought.

Many parents would agree with the government’s statements that quality SBNs are “popular with parents”, being convenient for “easier drop-offs and pick-ups” and providing “continuity of care”. The government argues that school-based early years provision has lower staff turnover and includes more SEND support and helps children transition into Reception. Moreover, there were more SBNs in deprived areas, and the reports on the first phase of funding have made a virtue of the fact that new SBNs are “increasing access to childcare in cold spots and supporting the communities that need it most”. Primaries with falling rolls might also welcome this solution to the problem of empty classrooms and lack of funding.

A nationwide policy will always have variations in implementation and success, and in this case we have only seen one round of funding thus far. Schools’ interest and capacity to apply will be impacted by many factors, including size and shape of the existing provision, established early years provision and the local appetite for school-based nurseries. Our provisional findings highlight the need to look beyond the headlines, and for parents to keep their expectations in check. Our analysis (not yet peer-reviewed) shows that the new SBNs differ from the stated vision in three ways: where they are located, the number of actual new nurseries and the targeting of disadvantaged children.

Location

The government says: “The majority of phase 1 school-based nurseries are in the North or Midlands, including around one in ten in the North East – increasing access to childcare in areas where it’s most needed.” The 300 schools that were successful are spread across the regions of England, with the highest number in the South East (43 schools, 14% of the total) and the lowest in the East Midlands, with 26 successful schools (9%). The total for the North and Midlands is in the majority, but these regions make up five of the nine regions in England.

New providers or new places?

Of these 300 schools, 174 (58%) have a nursery already and the funding is being used to expand this provision. This imbalance in favour of existing SBNs is a different picture than the touted ‘new’ nursery provision, which applies to 126 schools (42%). There is some variation in this imbalance by region, however. There are four areas where there are more new nurseries than those expanding (South East, East of England, South West and East Midlands), while five areas have more expanding than new (North West, Yorkshire, West Midlands, London, North East). London and the North East have the biggest differences, with far more existing nurseries, as there are only seven new nurseries in London and seven in the North East. Parents in these regions expecting new nursery provision to open up in their local primary may be disappointed by these figures. Interestingly, of the seven new nurseries in London, five are in one borough (Bromley) and three of these are run by the same Multi-Academy Trust. Thus, for the vast majority of London parents, at this stage at least, there will not be a new school-based nursery opening up near them.

Impact on disadvantaged areas

The policy is presented as benefitting the most disadvantaged areas and children, who gain the most from access to high-quality provision. The government notes that SBNs have historically been over-represented in poorer areas, although of course this will not necessarily be the case with new nurseries. If we look at the Free School Meal (FSM) eligibility rates of the 300 funded schools, most are actually less disadvantaged schools: 174 have below average FSM (58%), and 126 (42%) have above average FSM (where FSM average = 25.7%). If we compare the successful schools with all other primary schools, there are no statistically significant differences in FSM percentage between those funded and those not funded. This suggests the policy is not effectively prioritising those schools with a higher FSM percentage.

Notably, there are 62 schools on the list with a high FSM, over 40% (21%) and 26 schools with an FSM of over 50% (9%), suggesting the policy is working to target some highly disadvantaged areas. However, there are also 42 schools with very low FSM (under 10%), which is 14% of the total. Again, there is variation in terms of FSM levels between new and expanded nurseries. There are only 39 new nurseries in schools with above average FSM (13% of the 300 schools) overall.

There are also regional differences: in the West Midlands and North East, over half of the schools have above average FSM (though again there are higher rates of FSM in these regions overall). This suggests that the policy aim of providing additional places on school sites in disadvantaged areas has been more successful in these regions than elsewhere – and their experience therefore might be a useful one to examine ahead of the next round of funding.