PARENTS across North Yorkshire are being urged to take up free places for three-year-olds available in nurseries and playgroups this term.

The county council has secured cash from the Department for Education and Employment (Dfee) to fund extra free early years education places this autumn and next spring. It follows the disappointment earlier this year of receiving funding for just 106 three-year-old places for the summer term.

The matter was taken up with the Dfee and it is now expected that up to 2,200 places for three-year-olds will be available for the autumn term, and a further 2,200 in the spring.

There are about 1,800 places a term in school nursery classes for three-year-olds in the county, and the new places will be extra to those. There are about 6,500 children of that age living in North Yorkshire.

Most of the money will be targeted at the 280 providers in the private or voluntary sector that currently operate in the county.

However, in the future, some could be spent on authority-owned schools with nursery provision.

The education authority's head of policy and development, Bernadette Jones, said: "If the Government continues this grant, it means that in the future we should be able to offer most three-year-olds two terms of free education in a nursery setting.

"Parents should be able to claim up to five half-day sessions, or whatever they think is suitable for their child if it is less than that."

Parents with a child born between September 1, 1996, and March 31, 1997, should be able to go to their local playgroup or private provider and ask for a free place for the autumn term