The funding application process for schools to open 300 new or expanded nurseries will start from next month, the government announced today, while also launching a call for views on curriculum and assessment.

In a speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the new early years settings will start opening from next year, and will be the “first stage of our new nurseries” that boost “life chances for children and work choices for parents”. The eventual plan is to create 3,000 new nurseries.

Primary schools will be invited to bid for a share of £15 million capital funding from next month to utilise spare space, the Department for Education said today.

The first round of the programme will deliver up to 300 new or expanded nurseries.

Ms Phillipson said today that her DfE will bring in “a new era of child-centred government where children come first”.

The education secretary said she will focus on delivering quality early years education to tackle disadvantage-related attainment gaps at the earliest stage.

Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, welcomed the education secretary’s recognition of the “pivotal importance” of early years, but warned that private and voluntary nurseries, pre-schools and childminding professionals should also be “central to any reform plans” for the government’s school-based nursery pilot.

Both he and Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, called on the government to tackle the early years sector’s recruitment and retention issues to meet rising demand.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added that improved funding rates are needed in early years and primary education, and that “the government will need to be much more ambitious for our public services” in its forthcoming Budget to “close the disadvantage gap”.

Curriculum review call for evidence

The education secretary also announced that the government’s review of curriculum and assessment would today begin a “national conversation” to ensure a “rich and broad” curriculum.

The review, led by Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, has how begun a call for evidence on how the system can be improved.

The call for evidence will last for eight weeks and invites views from teachers, leaders, experts, young people and parents.

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Labour will publish a Children’s Wellbeing Bill in the coming months, which will include many of the party’s plans for schools.

Ms Phillipson said today that the government’s plan to reform education will be “centred not simply on schools or nurseries, knowledge or skills, university or college...but on our young people: on their chance to achieve and thrive, to succeed and flourish”.

She was speaking as the party’s conference drew to a close, and following appearances at several fringe events at which she highlighted Labour’s focus on inclusion in education.

Speaking yesterday evening at an event hosted by the Education Policy Institute, the education secretary said that many of the challenges pupils were facing “have their roots outside of the classroom and beyond the school gate”.

She added that the government recognises that currently the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system is not working.

“But the solutions, the way forward, are not so clear, and I think we do have to look really carefully at how we ensure we’ve got a system that is more responsive to the needs of children and families, less adversarial, but also puts support in place at a much earlier point,” she said.

Ms Phillipson added that the way forward would involve more SEND provision within mainstream schools.

Breakfast clubs rollout

Earlier in the conference, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £7 million of funding to start a pilot scheme of free breakfast clubs in primary schools from next April.

The DfE said up to 750 schools will be invited to test the delivery of breakfast clubs before they are rolled out to all primary schools.

Labour previously said the free breakfast club plan could cut almost half a million days of absence.

Speaking on a panel at the conference yesterday, early education minister Stephen Morgan said breakfast clubs will be a “key contributor” to the DfE’s mission to break barriers to opportunity and improve outcomes for children. However, the current guidance on school breakfasts is “grossly out of date”, he added.

He said that other interventions would be announced to tackle the disadvantage gap in education.