Girona will triple the places for babies in municipal nurseries and from the seven offered this year it will increase to 21. The new places for infants 0 will be concentrated in the La Baldufa nursery.
The Councilor for Education, Queralt Vila, explained that “an individual look at each baby” will be offered and that, for this reason, the classrooms will integrate a space where they can sleep and eat “with the aim of reproducing the rhythms of home.”
In parallel, next year the council will offer sixteen more free places for children in kindergarten 2. In addition, the government team proposes updating the income brackets so that more families pay between 60 and 160 euros monthly fee. In total, the nine daycare centers in Girona – including the two of the Generalitat – will offer 669 places.
Pre-registration in Girona nurseries will begin on May 6 – both in person and online – but these days there are already visits and open days. The City Council centralizes the process in the city’s nine daycare centers. Both the seven that are municipal (La Baldufa, Cavall Fort, El Pont, El Tren, Garbí and La Devesa) and the two that depend on the Generalitat (El Tarlà and Sant Ramon Nonat).
In total, for the next academic year the nine nurseries will offer 669 places divided between infants 0, 1 and 2 (the latter are free). Overall there are six more than the current course. Of the entire offer, 512 places will be in municipal nurseries; and the other 157, in those of the Generalitat.
Looking ahead to the next academic year, the City Council will modify the offer in municipal nurseries. The most significant change is that the number of places for babies will triple, since the seven i0 places offered at the Garbí nursery will now increase to 21. These fourteen places will be centralized in La Baldufa, where there will be two classrooms – with two educators in each one – who will welcome children less than twelve months old.
The Councilor for Education has stressed that, with the aim of maximally replicating the environment that babies have at home, “individualized attention” will be offered to each child. Therefore, classrooms will incorporate a space where babies can sleep and eat. “By allowing them to feed while on the lap of the educators, we want to reproduce the rhythms they have at home,” Queralt Vila stated.
Next year, Girona will have a total of 28 places for children from pre-school age 0. Because to the 21 that the municipal nurseries will offer, there are also the seven that the Generalitat already offers this course at the El Tarlà home.
In parallel, and with the aim of promoting “as much as possible” the transition of children to ordinary school, next year the City Council will also offer sixteen more places for i2 students in municipal nurseries. However, 24 places will be reduced for infant 1 children (that is, those between 12 and 24 months). This will be done by eliminating two of the four groups in La Baldufa; which, incidentally, will also allow the new classrooms for babies to be incorporated.
