Qualified nursery teachers will be offered a £4,500 tax-free bonus to take jobs in 10 areas of the country with the most acute staff shortages.
Ministers expect 1,200 teachers to benefit from the grants in the first year of the scheme, which will be rolled out to locations across England, including Middlesbrough, Bolton and Luton.
Teachers in the first 10 locations can apply for the grant from today, and it will be expanded to a further 20 parts of the country by the end of the year. The areas have been chosen based on deprivation levels, teacher shortages and levels of school readiness among children.
It is part of the Government’s Best Start in Life Strategy, launched in July last year, to give every child “the best teachers, with the best tools at their disposal”, according to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.
She said the measures will “help nurseries attract and keep more qualified staff – so they can deliver the funded childcare that saves families up to £8,000 a year in the communities that need it most”.
It comes after nurseries in deprived areas reported being unable to offer the funded hours scheme due to a shortage of qualified staff members and funding shortfalls.
Here’s how to apply for the scheme and a full list of where the new “early years teacher recognition payment” is available.
How to apply for the cash bonus
From today, teachers will be able to apply for £4,500 grants in some of the most deprived parts of the country.
The cash bonus is open to qualified teachers working in private, voluntary and independent (PVI) nurseries in any of the eligible local authority areas.
The grant is expected to go to a mixture of new recruits as well as teachers already working at settings in the specific locations, as long as they are fully qualified.
The Department for Education (DfE) is sending emails to eligible nursery settings and getting them to share the guidance with their staff, which includes a link to the digital claim service. It is also encouraging local authorities to make nurseries aware of the grant.
It is hoped that by the end of the year, a direct link will be available on the Government website so staff members can apply themselves.
Ministers expect 1,200 teachers across the 30 areas to benefit from the scheme in the first year.
There is no hard limit on the number of grants per setting, but the Department for Education (DfE) said it “reserves the right to close the scheme or prioritise applications if demand exceeds available funding” and will monitor take-up “closely”.
Which locations are included?
Teachers in some of the nation’s most deprived areas will have access to the grant first, as part of a wider package to strengthen the workforce.
The scheme also targets communities that have faced the sharp end of teacher shortages and where children are the least likely to be ready to start school in reception class.
The first 10 trial areas, where the grants were launched today, are:
Sandwell, West Midlands Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire Tameside, Greater Manchester Rochdale, Greater Manchester Bolton, Greater Manchester Hartlepool, County Durham Rotherham, South Yorkshire Dudley, West Midlands Luton, Bedfordshire Barking and Dagenham, LondonThe initial trial will allow the Government to test and improve the digital claims service ahead of launching it across the full 30 areas later this year.
The scheme will be expanded to the following areas:
Birmingham Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire Bradford, West Yorkshire Derby, Derbyshire Halton, Cheshire Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire Knowsley, Merseyside Leicester Liverpool Manchester Nottingham Oldham, Greater Manchester Peterborough, Cambridgeshire Portsmouth, Hampshire Salford, Greater Manchester South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear St Helens, Merseyside Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire Walsall, West Midlands Wolverhampton, WolverhamptonIt is hoped the scheme will allow more families to access the Government’s 30 hours of funded childcare entitlement for working parents by giving nurseries the qualified staff they need to open more places.
DfE data show that fewer than one in ten nursery staff hold a graduate teaching qualification, despite evidence indicating that more qualified staff provide better outcomes.
Alongside the bonus, the Government has also launched more partnership grants to fund nurseries, childminders and schools to work more closely together.
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