Drop in two-year-olds taking free childcare in Stockton

Leaders on Stockton Council’s cabinet were told how parents were choosing not to take up early learning places offering 15 hours of funded childcare per week.

Working parents of children from nine months to four years old can get 30 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks of the year. This has recently expanded from 15 hours for parents of two-year-olds.

The take-up of places for three and four-year-olds was 101 per cent in January this year, including children living outside the borough.

This was higher than the 95 per cent national average, with all Stockton childcare rated good or outstanding by Ofsted.

However the figures show a more mixed picture. There were 1,005 under-twos, 925 two-year-olds and 1,618 three and four-year-olds accessing the childcare places this year – 75 more two-year-olds than in 2024, and 18 fewer three and four-year-olds.

When it came to parents on “certain government benefits”, the figures say 397 two-year-olds accessed a free childcare place in the borough at the end of July – two-thirds of eligible children, a 20 per cent drop compared to summer 2024.

Inside the Stockton Council cabinet meeting in the council chamber at Dunedin House, Thornaby. Picture: LDRS.

Mandie Rowlands, the council’s senior lead for school support and sufficiency, explained the council’s duty to ensure enough childcare to meet the needs of parents who are working, studying or training.

She said: “There’s been a significant drop in our 15-hour early learning places.

“We’ve seen a reduction of 20 per cent. That’s taken us down to 66.28 per cent of those early learning places being taken up by parents.

“There’s a number of factors for that. It is parental choice whether they take that two-year placement up.

“We do this through letters, phoning, door-knocking and texting of those parents offering those places. But it does come back down to those parents making that choice and looking for that childcare.

“We are working with our family hubs to identify those families in our local areas and doing a little bit more outreach work with those parents. It’s part of our school readiness strategy as well to increase those numbers back up to where they’ve been previously.

“Due to the expansion of the funded childcare, we are now only reporting one or two vacant places in some of the wards. But across the whole borough we’ve got 516 vacant places [as of July 2025], so there’s still choices out there for our parents and carers.

“We want to ensure that parents are aware of those. Stockton has a good range of childcare and we’re very proud that 100 per cent of our childcare providers are good or outstanding.

“That includes our private sector and our child-minders. There continues to be a reduction in our child-minders, we’ve seen an ageing population and a lot of them have chosen to retire or their family circumstances have changed.

“We’ve put a plan in place and we’ve now got our own child-minding course. We’ve seen three child-minders complete that and become registered.”

Ms Rowlands told how four Stockton schools got grants from the Department for Education for more early years places from this academic year, adding: “Stockton continues to create additional places in before and after-school provision, that wraparound childcare element to ensure parents have got access to good-quality childcare between eight and six.

“The work will continue to assess the sufficiency of places to ensure parents and carers are able to access early years funding places and wraparound childcare places. And we’ll continue to work with childcare providers and schools to either expand or create additional places where we see high demand.”

The council’s report said 206 places were created for children up to two from DfE funding awarded last year.

The report said “Two new provisions for twos and under will open in 2026, creating more places in Yarm and Eaglescliffe.

“A provider in Ingleby Barwick is looking at reducing their age range to meet demand for children aged from 18 months and a provider in Stainsby Hill ward has increased places by 54 across all nursery ages from September 2025 to meet the demand for 30-hour funded places.”

Councillor Clare Besford, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “I’m really pleased to see that our take-up for three to four-year-olds is 101 per cent, against a national average of 95 per cent. The reason for that is somebody from outside of Stockton has chosen to send their child to a place here.

“We have a higher than regional average of employees in full-time work. We have 100 per cent of our settings rated as good or outstanding. Certainly two good reasons in my view.

“I think the drop in two-year-old funded places is concerning. There’s a really solid action plan in place to look at picking that up.

“Although the take-up has dropped in terms of some of our more disadvantaged families, we are seeing in terms of planning that’s where there is the largest expansion in requirements.”

The data shows from June 2025 figures there were 1,873 pupils with an education, health and care plan, an increase of 148 pupils on the previous year, and the number of pupils receiving support for special educational needs rose by 187 pupils.