More than 150 early years providers from across Cornwall are attending a special conference this week to hear an update on the latest plans for the introduction of 30-hour-a-week child care from September.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Spring Conference 2017, organised by Cornwall Council’s Education and Early Years directorate, is being held at the Pavilion Centre at the Royal Cornwall Showground in Wadebridge on Friday and Saturday (February 3 and 4).

Key note speakers include Ann Van Dyke, the South West Childcare Works programme advisor, who will give an update on planning for the implementation of the 30 hours a week childcare policy, and Kathryn Solly, a specialist early years trainer and author, who will speak about the importance of “magic moments” and including creativity in high quality play based learning.

’We have around 11,000 three- and four-year-olds in Cornwall, with 500 early years providers from the private, voluntary, independent and maintained sectors and nursery schools, said Andrew Wallis, the Council’s lead member for children and young people.

While the Council supports the introduction of the new childcare offer, and development of a national funding formula, significant concerns were initially raised over the level of funding being allocated to Cornwall by the Government to provide the additional child care hours, with some early years providers warning that it could lead to them going out of business.

The Council worked with providers to highlight these concerns to ministers – resulting in an increase in the basic rate of funding being given to local authorities.

But, said Cllr Wallis: ’We remain concerned that this means Cornwall will still receive the lowest rate possible.  As a result we will only be able to retain 3% of the funding to support early years’ central costs and Special Educational Needs top-up funding, while other authorities will be able to retain between 7-5%.’