Nursery Consultation

We are beginning a consultation process with you about St. Oswald’s opening a pre-school nursery in place of Kangaroo Kids on our site. The Governing Board and I believe it is the right time to consider this move.

We are considering ending our lease agreement with Kangaroo Kids and taking over the provision for pre-school aged children from September. If we were to go ahead with this decision following consultation, we would run the setting for children from 3 years of age (Kangaroo Kids cater for children aged 2 at present).

Should this go ahead, parents would be able to apply the 30 hours free childcare funding as they currently do for pre-school children aged 3 and 4. Charges would be competitive with local rates, and we would be able to provide wrap around care from 7.30 to 6.00 for parents who want this as part of Ozzie’s before and after school club.

Unfortunately, there have been safeguarding concerns at Kangaroo Kids and Ofsted carried out a visit in response to complaints. Ofsted found that the provider was not meeting some of their statutory safeguarding requirements and had failed to follow the Local Safeguarding Children Partnership (LSCP) procedure in respect of an allegation against a member of staff.

It is good practice for a setting to share an Ofsted update with the parents. However, if parents have not seen it, you can view on the Ofsted site.

This has obviously deeply concerning to us, and has brought us to the decision that we would like to consider opening our own pre-school nursery at St. Oswald’s.

Although when we consulted publicly last year to change our age range to 2-11 in order to provide for Kangaroo Kids children at Ozzie’s before and after school club, it was not our intention to consider taking on the nursery ourselves at this time. However, given what has happened, we are excited about this potential development for St. Oswald’s, and we would spend the next few months planning and preparing. We would work closely with the Local Authority to set up our nursery provision. We have a number of experienced Early Years practitioners within our current team, many of whom have nursery career backgrounds and qualifications.

Benefits for St. Oswald’s children and families

- Strong, robust safeguarding leadership, protocol, processes and policies, completely aligned with our school systems.
- Stronger transition for children moving from nursery to our Reception cohort.
- Excellent nursery provision that is aligned with our approach to the Early Years curriculum in our Reception classrooms. By using the same approaches for learning areas such as phonics, it offers better consistency for children, which can only help their development and learning.

Your Feedback

The Governing Body would very much like to hear your opinion. If you wish to respond in writing to the consultation, we ask that you let us have your views by completing the feedback form below by 3pm on Friday 24th March 2023.

We will be hosting a Q&A session for parents/other stakeholders with myself, a school Governor, and Katy Miller (St Oswald’s Early Years Leader) on Thursday 23rd March at 3.30 in school should anyone wish to meet and discuss this or any questions you may have with us in person.