If your area will be 127 primary places short...

[CardyMow]

Will that also mean that 127 pre-schoolers won't get a place at pre-school? DS3's year is the biggest year group ever in my area, and I am concerned as this area has always had a lack of pre-school places. It's not unheard of for children to get offered a place at pre-school the week they start Reception!

What do you do if you don't get a pre-school place, all the funded placed at private nurseries are full, and you can't afford to pay private nursery fees for a half day?

In my area, there has always been some DC that just have to stay at home until Reception, and this looks set to get worse for DS3's year group. There are no school nurseries here, which compounds the problem, as all the DC that start pre-school stay until they start Reception.

I am concerned as the pre-schools all work on distance, and it looks like DS3 will fall outside the last distance for all of them. DS2 is also in a big year group (he is in a bulge class at primary), and he only ever had two afternoons a week at pre-school.

Are they just going to give each child one half day? Even then there will be a shortfall of places, but really they should get the 15 hrs a week, not just 3! Though it WILL save the LEA a bucketload of money...

Oh, what a sorry situation.

There isn't a statutory right to pre-school education, so councils aren't obliged to find places for all applicants (as they would be for reception upwards). One would hope they would be responsive to local demand in terms of number of places they can offer. But constraints on spending means that's less likely to happen (at all, or to the desirable extent), as does pressure on space (if the real estate is being taken up with portacabins for bulge classes in primaries).

How they divvy up the days into sessions, and then how many sessions can be offered per child will be decided by each LA (and should be published). You'll also need to join waiting lists for private providers.

And the only other thing I can think if is to see if you can get together with other parents in the same boat and start a playgroup. Or at least establish a group of regulars at a One O'Clock Club (maybe seeing if its opening hours could be extended a bit).