Funding schools to set up nurseries works. Why spend more on older children, when we know spending earlier is most effective?Despite the rampaging rogue state across the Atlantic, around the cabinet table ministers push on with their plans. Too often ignored in all this sound and fury, there is some good news. This week Bridget Phillipson awarded the first 300 primary schools funding to set up nurseries that will add up to 4,000 places by the end of September. In the great dash for growth, growth, growth the OBR predicted an extra 0.2% of GDP due to the provision of free nursery hours for under twos, which are now coming on stream.Nurseries may lack the glamour of mighty infrastructure projects, but the growth effect is immediate, letting more parents work, or work more hours. But the overriding motive of Labour’s early years push is to drive life chances of children whose future is too often determined long before they reach primary school.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...