One of the schools building an extension to offer more places to two-year-olds is High Crags Primary in Shipley.

There, ground work has started ahead of the £1.14 million project to build a new nursery and sports and dining hall.

The school offers 12 morning places for two-year-olds in a temporary cabin, with a popular creche held there each afternoon.

The extension will allow the school to double its offer for two-year-olds, with a further 12 places in the afternoons. The building will also house its nursery children aged three and four, though they will be taught separately.

And the temporary building will be kept on as the home of the school’s creche.

Headteacher Gill Roberts said: “It has been worth the hard work that has gone into it.”

Mrs Roberts said the work had partly been funded by a grant for expanding schools, and by a grant for early-years provision.

She said: “We have always had a commitment to have a creche facility as these children then come into our nursery and then into our school. The two-year-old project we are really excited by.”