A nursery school will be allowed to take children in from a younger age from the beginning of 2022.

The Oxhey Early Years Centre in Eastbury Road, which currently takes in children between the ages of three and five, will extend its invitation to two-year-olds.

In May, Hertfordshire County Council consulted on plans to extend the age range in line with other local nursery schools, and at a meeting of the council’s cabinet yesterday (July 12), councillors agreed to back the plans.

A statutory notice will now be published – with the centre set to be able to take two-year-olds from January.

At the meeting, executive member for education, libraries and lifelong learning Cllr Terry Douris said the school already had sufficient staff and space to accommodate the change.

And he said it would enable children from the Oxhey, Oxhey Hall and Rookery areas to "start their education at an early stage".

The nursery school currently has capacity for 105 children in the morning and 105 in the afternoon.

As part of the change, councillors heard that the capacity would not change – but up to 20 of the children would be two-years-old.

Consultation on the change took place for four weeks, between May 11 and June 7.

Cllr Douris said 185 consultation letters were sent out by the school, with a further 180 sent out directly from the county council.

And he said: "Of those 365 consultations I have to tell you that we got eight back, and all but one was supportive of this."

Meanwhile leader of the county council, Cllr Richard Roberts, said he took it from the feedback that generally families in Oxhey were "very supportive" of these measures.