all bad news all the time

[thereyougothen]

Nico's nursery is one of the ones that the council proposes to close. Cameron House is an incredible place, with a perfect HMIe report. It's a fabulous place, it turns out wonderful children, and its staff helped me get through a couple of very hard times last year.

But it only has room for 26 places, and can't offer wrap around care, so it will never make it as a business. It has almost entirely full time children on free places, and the few that aren't on free places pay for extra hours and send their children nearly full time, like we do.

I was able to take on this new job because N does extra hours at nursery.

The proposal is to close Cameron house and the other nearby one, Princess Elizabeth, and move the children into the nursery at Prestonfield School. When that is done, there will be no spare places, so we will not be able to buy extra hours. it seems from next year there will be no full time places and no extra hours, only the 2.5 hours per day, and more and more children will be forced to take up unpopular afternoon places, or indeed forced into private nurseries because 2.5 hours isn't long enough for the parent to hold down a job.

The headteacher tells us that the council would like this closure to be done by christmas.

I have never campaigned for anything in my life, and I don't really know where to start, but I have to do something. only 8 children have come back to Cameron house this year, the rest of the roll will be new. so there aren't a lot of parents to form an action group. some of the parents do not speak a lot of english either, and will struggle to help. some will be just bewildered. I am bewildered.

the council is talking about "campuses" and having the nurseries co-located with the primary schools as a good thing, but it's not, 3 year-olds don't belong on a campus, they belong in a nursery school, a nice small place, built just for them. Even if it was built 70 years ago and doesn't have room for lots of children, it's not supposed to have room for lots of children, it's nursery school for goodness sake.

i'm going to have to learn to be articulate about this somehow, and i don't know how. i'm really at a loss. i can't stand there and let Nico's pre-school year be completely disrupted. cameron house is part of the family, we can't move to prestonfield and a whole bunch of new people and new teachers and lose everything half way through the year. we just can't.

i should add that i picked the wrong week to become an employee of the council. the head teacher informed me yesterday that as a council employee i am barred from campaigning on the issue. if any member of the public asks me anything, i'm to refer them to the council's call centre.

Bill and I have spoken about it, and while he would prefer that I let others take any lead in trying to save Cameron House, he knows as well as I do that with only 8 sets of parents, the likelihood is that there won't be anyone else, so I'll be pretty vocal. we are both clear though that the council has no right to stifle me on this, cameron house nursery school and castleview primary school have no connection, so my job will not be affected in any way by me speaking out about cameron house. basically, they can sack me, but i'm sure the papers would love that. council sacks low paid clerical worker for trying to save her child's nursery school, the nursery school being the only reason said clerical worker is able to take on a job at all....

i feel sick about it all. just sick.

it's not just Nico, what about all the kids starting at cameron house next week? what about the kids who won't be able to go there next year, or 5 years from now? children are our most important resource, and funding cuts shouldn't be taken out on them.

some of the school closures are sensible, it's a shame, but you can't run a school at 40% capacity, but that's not the case with any of the nursery schools. Did I mention their goal is to close the nursery schools and community centres by January 2008?

Comments

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

It seems particularly mad that the reason they are closing the smaller nurseries is an inability to provide wrap around care, yet the replacement will not even provide full time school-day places, let alone wrap around care! I assume this is a Council decision? Whats the political balance on the Council/who are the ruling coaltion? Is there potential to get local politicians on side (example, we have frig all chance round here because the administration could stand a donkey in our area and have him elected (or indeed a Downing Street Special Advisor, which is how we got our current MP, who I am not sure had heard of Wolverhampton before he was nominated here)).

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

inability to offer wrap around care is not the only reason, it one of the ways they explained *why* the nursery is too small though.
I've just read the full report, and I can't find in it any reference to no more full-time places, that was told me by my new boss yesterday, she is the head teacher of a primary school with a nursery attached. its nursery has almost all full time children in free places, so she would be in a position to know. i suspect they won't be announcing that yet.
we now have a lib dem SNP coalition running edinburgh. our natural ally should be the local lib dem councillor, who Bill leaflets for. he has a child who should be of nursery age this year. the only problem is that he's now the council's finance bod. we still intend on calling in the favours.
it's a council decision, based on funding from holyrood.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Although its anathema to say so, for the sake of your local issue it might be worth soliciting support from any local Labour councillors as well - its a high profile Labour policy nationally and they might be interested in raising the issue for their own ends, but that might benefit you as well. Sometimes, we need to play their game for our own ends ;-)

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

we now have super wards in edinburgh. we are represented by 4 councillors - we have a lib dem, a tory, one labour and a green. we know the lib dem, and cangetmad knows the green, so with a bit of luck i can get at least two of them to listen. i'll be camping out at all their surgeries over the next few months.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Yes, the new system up there has been doing all sorts of interesting things to representation!

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Arse, fucking arse. Poor you and all the kids and families. Anything I can do? Is it in Southside and Newington? In which case I know one of your councillors (in addition to the one you know) if that would help?

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

yes, we're southside and newington and anything you can do to help will be brilliant. i am sick, just so sick.

[sismith42.livejournal.com]

what can I do to help? could you send this to the newspapers? I'll see who's my local councelor and call/write them... (if I don't flake, that is)

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

the papers are already all over it, but what i need is to get people directly involved with our nursery to get motivated. you'll find that there is something in your community that could use your help, this is happening all over the city.

[chillies.livejournal.com]

Seems there's much activism about the closures: http://www.saveournurseries.org.uk/