Exwick Heights Primary School: proposal to change the age range

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Proposal

The Governing Body of Exwick Heights Primary School is proposing to extend the age range of Exwick Heights Primary School from 3-11 to 2-11 with effect from September 2025.

Background

The Department for Education (DfE) recently launched a School-Based Nursery Capital Grant for which primary-phase schools could bid for funding for capital expenditure towards creating and expanding school based nursery provision.  

The Capital Grant is to support the expansion of childcare places as a result of the Government’s increased early years entitlements to families.

Exwick Heights Primary School is committed to meeting the needs of our local community by providing inclusive and high-quality education. As part of this commitment, we are seeking to establish a provision for 2-year-olds, creating additional places to address a clear local need.  This initiative has the full support of Devon County Council (DCC), which has identified a significant shortage of childcare for 2-year-olds in Exwick.  

Parents in the area have expressed difficulty in accessing childcare due to both geographical constraints and limited spaces at existing facilities.  The opportunity to offer children and families the access to Nursery provision from age 2 is part of our ongoing mission. We envisage that this extension in provision will provide valuable support to our community.  By establishing a provision on-site at Exwick Heights Primary School, we will eliminate accessibility barriers for families within our catchment area. This will ensure that more children can access early years education in a setting that is both geographically and socially familiar.

Benefits of the proposal

In light of the increases to early years entitlements and associated funding, Devon County Council is projecting an increase in the demand for early years places. 

By enabling children to start in the nursery at 2-years-old, children will have greater consistency, and it will enable staff to make a more significant impact and identify children’s needs well before they start in the reception class. Therefore, we would be able to establish the strongest links possible with our families from the outset working to support them from a younger age. We would be able to support more parents/carers in finding high quality, flexible provision in the local area and offer a wider parental choice.

Parents will still need to make a separate application to Devon County Council for a place in the reception class.

Process and Decision-making

Following the end of this consultation, Exwick Heights Primary School with the support of the Ted Wragg Trust will carefully consider all responses and, subject to the outcome of this consultation, is proposing to submit an application to the Department for Education (DfE) to extend the age range from 3-11 to 2-11 from September 2025.  It is the DfE who will be the decision-maker for this proposal.

Capital and planning

If our application for capital funding is successful it will support significant enhancements to the nursery provision.  Planning permission will be required. The proposal to change is subject to the outcome of the capital bid.

This proposal will not affect the Published Admission Number (PAN) for the school, nor the capacity for school aged children, and will not put pressure on classroom space for school aged children. 

Responding to the consultation

This consultation will run from Monday 10^th  February 2025 to Monday 3^rd  March 2025.

We welcome responses on this proposal by the closing date of Monday 3^rd  March 2025 by:

Emailing: info@tedwraggtrust.co.uk

Or by writing to:

Mrs. G Wills

Exwick Heights Primary School,

Exwick Lane,

Exeter,

EX4 2FB

All responses to the consultation will be considered and will be shared with the school’s leadership team, Local Governing Body, Board of Directors and Trustees. Responses will also be shared with the Department for Education as the decision-maker, but we will not send individual responses to any specific points made.  

The Trust Privacy Notice can be found here.