The Pre-school Learning Alliance (PLA) is an early-years educational registered charity and a voluntary sector provider of childcare for young children in England.
An educational charity, the Alliance represents the interests of over 14,000 member settings who deliver care and learning to over 800,000 families every year.
In 1961 a reader of the Manchester Guardian, Belle Tutaev, pointed out the inadequacy of state-provided nursery education in the UK.
Her suggested Nursery School Campaign resulted the formation of the Pre-School Playgroups Association (PPA) on 16 July 1962.
[3][4][5][6] The PPA received a grant that year from the Nuffield Foundation, and in 1966 from the Department of Education and Science, at which point 600 groups were affiliated.