Education Minister announces first step in major expansion of pre-school education provision in Lisburn

Six of these pre-school settings are located in the Lisburn area and will extend their provision to provide full-time funded pre-school education places from September 2025.

Ballinderry Primary School, Jolly Pirates Pre-School Playgroup, Little Rays Pre-School Playgroup, Rhyme Times Playgroup, Rowandale Integrated Nursery Unit and Tonagh Primary School will extend their provision to provide full-time funded pre-school education places from September 2025.

Mr Givan said: “In May, I announced the largest expansion of pre-school provision in over 25 years, and today we are taking an important step forward in delivering on our plan to provide every child with a full-time pre-school place.

“We want to ensure an additional 2,200 children will have a full-time funded pre-school place from September 2025. This will involve transitioning 100 pre-school settings from part-time provision to full-time.

“Having carefully considered the requests made by pre-school settings and the comments provided by stakeholders in response to the public consultation on the proposed changes, I have approved the first 77 pre-school settings to transition.

“These settings will provide additional full-time places from September 2025, providing target aged children with the best start to their education and their families with additional support too.

“This is just the first tranche of settings announced and it is my intention to announce further tranches in the coming weeks. I want to ensure that all council areas and all pre-school management types will be represented within the settings proposed for transition from September 2025.”