Nursery class with no teacher?

[JinglingAllTheWay]

Anyone had any experience of this? My Dn ( who lives with us) starts nursery this week and her class don't have a teacher, just a nursery nurse ( who is also a HLTA).

I work wth children and all out classes have a teacher, I have asked a few people at school and everyone seems to think this is odd ( although this school is in a different county).

I've tried to do some research but is all a bit unclear... Should the class have a teacher? I've queried it with the school and they said the class is 'over seen' by the reception teacher. But she never actually works with them.

Just wanted to check what the guidelines were and whether this is usual practice or if this school is doing something different.

My 2 went to a different school before we moved so never went through this nursery.

Thanks for any info :)

Our small village school don't have a teacher for the early entitlement/nursery class. I think their 'teacher' is level 4 TA but could be wrong, certainly not qualified teacher. They are in the same area as the reception teacher though.

I guess if they were at a pre-school not attached to a school (if you see what i mean) that they wouldn't have qualified teachers there.

I queried this a while ago as it was possible that my daughter would have be in this situation - it is possible as long as the reception teacher's total class numbers don't exceed the permitted maximum - about 30, which certainly wouldn't have been the case. However, at our school you can pay for top up sessions in the afternoon and there is no teacher then (she only works mornings).

The numbers are different, but there are children in Nursery classes of all sorts without qualified teachers.
Without a qualified teacher (ie, operating like a Nursery that does day care, or like a playgroup in a community hall) then there can only be 8 children for one adult. With a teacher, they can then have 13 children per adult, so there can be a very positive advantage to not having a qualified teacher, if the Nursery staff are good.

I'm afraid it is actually illegal not to have a teacher in a maintained nursery school/class.

The law states

The early years foundation stage (EYFS) requires that, in nursery classes in maintained schools and maintained nursery schools:

there is at least one member of staff for every 13 children
at least one member of staff is a teacher, and
at least one other member of staff is qualified to level 3.