St Athan playgroup loses funding for special needs children

Glamorgan Star news 30/04/2024

4 minutes read

A PLAYGROUP that caters for children with Additional Learning Needs has had its funding cut by the Vale Council.

Swallows Playgroup in St Athan specialises in supporting young children with Additional Learning Needs (ALN) aged 2-4 and offered fully funded nursery places until the budget cut. The lack of council funding means that Swallows will lose children from the playgroup, and some ALN children will be transferred into mainstream learning – decision that has disappointed parents and staff.

Stacy Spargo, 43, is the ALN Leader at Swallows and helps families through the process of diagnosis and creates a specialised learning plan for each child. She told the Glamorgan Star: “It’s absolutely, ridiculous that they’ve just whipped this funding away.

“If we lose this educational funding, then we won’t need all the staff because we will lose half our children, so redundancies are going to be inevitable.”

Stacy explained how mainstream learning can be detrimental to a child with ALN: “They’re going to have to experience more transitions throughout the day if their parents are working, which is going to unsettle them. They need to have a rigorous routine. They need to know that they’ve got that safe person and that safe place.”

“I can think of four children off the top of my head wo have thrived, and they’ve grown and gone into a state school. All of those four children have ended up in Ysgol y Deri because the school can’t cope.”

She explained that the facilities at Swallows are designed to help to deliver the curriculum but also provide an extra level of care and attention that children with ALN often require. It has a sensory room, a forest space, and a woodwork shed.

Alongside this, the council itself paid for two staff members to gain their qualifications in woodworking and become qualified forest school leaders. It also paid, for four members of staff to travel to Bolonga Italy where they attended various courses specialising in aiding children with ALN.

Stacy said: “We’ve also had a woodwork shed that’s been delivered with all the woodwork tools for our 3- and 4-year-olds in line with the curriculum but they’ve pulled our funding.

“That means we won’t have 3- and 4-year-olds – only two-year-olds. In the last couple of months, they’ve spent about £20,000 on us yet they can’t fund the spaces for the children. We don’t need resources – we’ve got enough.”

Kathryn Duddridge is a parent of a child with ALN. Her son Ollie was diagnosed with autism from an early age. She said: “My son attended Swallows from February 2021 until his end of the school year of 2023.

“The team were brilliant and so well educated in ALN that they spotted his struggles straight away. They immediately got in touch with the Early Years Forum and liaised with them to get one to one support for my son. He was diagnosed with autism. He made such progress at Swallows and it made the start of his school life such a positive that he has transitioned so well into his specialist provision school.

“The team there are amazing, and I felt so supported and involved with my son’s education in comparison to a ‘mainstream’ nursery school.”

“I feel if it wasn’t for Swallows then we would have had to wait a long time to get a diagnosis and IDP in place for my son and therefore he wouldn’t be attending the SEN school he now absolutely needs.”

Cllr Rhiannon Birch. Photo: Vale Council. — **| Cllr Rhiannon Birch.**
*Photo: Vale Council.*

Cllr Rhiannon Birch, the Vale Council cabinet member for Education, Arts and the Welsh Language, said: “The council faced an unprecedented financial challenge to balance the budget for 2024/25 after a ‘real terms’ cut in funding caused in part by soaring energy prices, inflation and interest rates.

“There is also a growing demand for critical council services from an ageing population and rising number of children with ALN. From the outset, we made protecting provision for these and other vulnerable groups a priority. This decision was also influenced by the fact there is currently surplus capacity for nursery provision in the local area and, after considering future demand, which can be met within our own schools. Parents have not been disadvantaged by the timing of this decision.”

Tracy O’Callaghan has worked at Swallows for 24 years as the manager. She said: “They have been disadvantaged because this is their first choice so now, they are going to have to look into other settings. Also, they are going to be disadvantaged because if they are full time working parents, they are going to have to find multiple childcare options.”

In response to the council’s statement a letter was written on behalf of Swallows Playgroup from the charity Early Years Wales. David Goodger, BA(Hons) QTS, BSc, PGCAP, Chief Executive Officer, Early Years Wales, wrote: “We believe this decision is driven by your education services financial position and is not in the interests of the children and families that are using Swallows Playgroup.

“St Athan is an area that is coastal, rural, and has a significant number of military families in the community that Swallows Playgroup supports. The pressure on the non-military adult to be able to find childcare and work opportunities is different to a more static population.

“Often these families are distanced from their support networks and cannot rely on grandparents or other family members to help with childcare, or with support at drop-off and pick-up as other parents might in some of your other communities.”

“The removal of the early education funding adds further pressure to the family and notably the child. Instead of promoting continuity of care for the child and fewer transitions in their day, this policy increases the number of transitions. The decision seems out of step with the Welsh Government’s stated intention of creating an integrated Early Childhood Play, Learning and Care approach in Wales; a policy I am certain the Vale Council does not disagree with.”