If education is driven out of the children's centre programme, then the Government's intention to improve the educational attainment and life chances of children in poverty will fail.
If we continue to close nursery schools we will lose the best model of high-quality care and education we have on which to build integrated services that stand a chance of reducing initial inequality.
The Forum was established in 2001 to expose the extent to which maintained nursery schools were providing services to support families and to assist in extending and developing these services in line with Government policy.
The closure and amalgamation of maintained nursery schools has continued and many local authorities have overlooked them as the base for extended services.
The Forum fully endorses the concept of working with multi-disciplinary teams to provide fully integrated services within children's centres, but believes they need to be the best possible if they are to succeed.
The children's centre programme extension has been accompanied by a contraction of the number of nursery schools and a withdrawal of Government funding for the Forum. We are determined this should not mean the end of the Forum, and we remain committed to developing effective practice within high quality children's centres.
The Forum is uniquely placed to link the practice of maintained nursery schools and the former early excellence centres with the new children's centres.
To this end, the Forum is reinventing itself as an Open Forum, organising three conferences a year on issues of importance to the development of children's centres. We hope that heads of nursery schools and children's centres will attend.
For further information visit www.early-education.org.uk.
