Why nurseries need teachers

By Pat Wills, headteacher at Claremont Primary School in Blackpool Nursery classes have a long tradition of staffing ratios to include nursery nurses alongside teachers. However, the Government's use of Age Weighted Pupil Units to calculate nursery funding has meant cuts in budgets and the erosion of staffing ratios. This has led to a reduction in nursery teachers, as the received wisdom is that a nursery nurse qualification is sufficient to run a nursery class.