This Expression of Interest (EOI) form is for state-funded primary-phase schools and Maintained Nursery Schools in West Sussex who wish to express interest in creating or expanding a school-based nursery (SBN) on the current school premises and would like to be considered in the WSCC funding proposal to the Department for Education (DfE) for Phase 3 of School-based Nursery Capital Grant 2027 to 2030.

To be eligible for funding, SBN projects being put forward by local authorities must meet all eligibility criteria outlined in this guidance. This includes:

• The school must be a state-funded primary-phase school that already offers some early education (such as a reception class) and Maintained Nursery Schools in West Sussex who wish to express interest in creating or expanding a school-based nursery (SBN) on the current school premises.
• Proposed projects must result in a net increase in the number of childcare places, taking into account any existing provisions on site or nearby, including that delivered by external providers.
• Projects will need to be operational and offering new childcare places by September 2030 at the latest.

All eligible schools who have projects they would like to be considered for this phase must complete this EOI submission by 12pm on 01 April 2026. WSCC intends to communicate outcomes to providers in the week commencing 04 May 2026. This EOI only requires brief outlines of the intended proposal at this stage to support early engagement.

EOIs will be assessed against eligibility criteria outlined in the DfE School-based Nursery Capital Grant 2027-2030 including childcare need in the area and ability to deliver the project within the grant timescale. If successful at this stage, schools will be invited and supported to submit a full proposal to WSCC. The Local Authority deadline for submitting completed proposals to the DfE is 5pm on 30 September 2026. Please note, there will be an earlier deadline for schools to submit their full proposals to WSCC ahead of this. It is anticipated that the deadline for full applications will be at the end of August 2026 but this is subject to further information/confirmation.

For further details on phase 3 of the School-based Nursery Capital Grant, including information on eligibility and assessment criteria, please refer to School-based Nursery Capital Grant 2027 to 2030 - GOV.UK. 

For further support during this process please contact WSCCSchoolBasedNurseries@westsussex.gov.uk.

Privacy/Data protection notice

The Early Years and Childcare team will use this questionnaire to collect personal and special category data the processing of which is necessary to enable us to be compliant with the law (general well-being duties), and for reasons of substantial public interest. The data will be processed in accordance with the 2018 Data Protection Act, the General Data Protection Regulations, and any subsequent data protection legislation. The data we collect be securely stored and kept for period of up to 3 years before being appropriately destroyed. The data we will collect will not be used for any other purpose than that stated above without your prior written consent. West Sussex County Council is registered as Data Controller (Reg. No. Z6413427). For further details and information about our Data Controller, please see our Privacy Policy (opens in new window).

Alternative formats and accessibility

If you require any of the information for this project in an alternative format, please telephone us on 01243 777807 or via email at family.info.service@westsussex.gov.uk and we will do our best to assist you. If you are deaf or hard of hearing and have a BT Relay UK app (opens in new window) installed on your computer, tablet, laptop or smartphone, you can contact us on 18001 01243 777807. The BT Relay UK app has now replaced the NGT texting app.

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Please note, you can use the Google Translate function to access this project in a range of different languages. The Google Translate widget can be found at the top left-hand side of the project pages, where it sits just above the black West Sussex County Council ribbon.